


Trapped Between Two Lungs

by lovedealer (missmonster), snoozingkitten, track_04



Series: Lungs 'verse [1]
Category: Johnny's Entertainment, Kanjani8 (Band), NewS (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Detectives, Alternate Universe - Medical, Blood and Violence, Death, Explicit Language, Graphic Description, M/M, Serial Killers, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-26
Updated: 2010-06-26
Packaged: 2018-10-16 06:22:11
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 49,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10565436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/missmonster/pseuds/lovedealer, https://archiveofourown.org/users/snoozingkitten/pseuds/snoozingkitten, https://archiveofourown.org/users/track_04/pseuds/track_04
Summary: A disgraced doctor working as a medical examiner for Tokyo Metropolitan Police can’t get the faces of his patients out of his head and discovers a chilling string of deaths that might just be related. Working with a pair of detectives, each with their own secrets and compulsions that keeps them separated, they try and bring justice for the dead and, just maybe, they can help each other, or it will rip them apart. Literally.





	

**Author's Note:**

> originally written for the 2010 round of je_devilorangel, using the prompts "your body is a wonderland" and "girls just wanna have fun"

Her arms moved, flailed through the air to beat against his shoulders but he wasn’t about to move. Besides, there wasn’t much force behind the blows at all, skinny arms like twigs. Adrenaline surged through his system, a dizzying mix of power with the faintest hint of arousal mixing with some sort of deep gnawing anger. He pressed down a little harder on the pillow that covered her face. With his body on her legs she wasn't able to kick, wasn't able to scream.

She couldn’t do anything but let him fix her.

She’d been so noisy, like a yappy dog but not worth the breath that she was stealing. Her very existence offended him, making the empty feeling in his chest throb and pulse. So he would make her quiet. The thought helped calm the tempest in his head.

Slowly her arms stopped moving as desperately, making these pitiful whining noises from her chest, deep sobbing sounds muffled by the pillow. Just a little more now, then he would need to clean up.

When it was done and she was limp he stood up and slipped the pillow back on her bed. Dead, she almost looked asleep, but it wasn’t right. She still wasn’t right. Wrong wrong wrong. He pressed his palm against his forehead and closed his eyes, trying to concentrate past the crushing disappointment. This was supposed to make things _better_. All those times before he’d walked away, floating on air and endorphins, but something was missing. Something vital and it was just out of his reach, a tantalizing prize.

He hesitated. 

No, no. This was all he had time for now, he couldn’t stray from the plan. Even if it hurt him, he would need to leave her ugly. Unfinished, but at least silent; death looked better on her then bitch ever did.

The next one would be better.

\--

It was a cold morning and Koyama pulled his coat tighter about himself as he rushed from the car-park to the side-entrance of the police station. The station itself was a fine-old building built in a western style out of sync with the rest of the block, but it was a quirky beauty with its gothic style. Not that Koyama had the time or presence of mind to think about such things; he was too busy thinking about how his morning coffee was waiting on the other side of that door and he was already running a solid five minutes behind schedule.

Rushing through the puddles that formed in last night’s rain, he shook off his foot and used his pass-key to open the locked entrance and slipped inside the warmth of the police station. Even at 6:30 in the morning the place was bustling, everyone getting ready for the shift change at 7:00, tired night shift and lack-luster morning shift. Koyama waved absently at some of the police officers that he passed, he was on basic speaking terms with some of the grunts.

Moving down the stairs he descended two floors in a clumsy mess of his coat-tails and his messenger bag bouncing off the corners of the guard rails. The temperature dropped as went down to the lowest basement levels. Even in the hottest and smog-filled days of the summer the basement levels held the child of death and winter. It was a kind of welcome balm against his flushed face.

In the lowest level he stopped and slipped through one of the wide double doors, just barely skirting around a tray filled with empty sample collection vials.

“Morning.” He nodded his chin at one of the attendants who was walking by in scrubs to bring the bodies out of storage. “How many today?”

“Three today, one more on the way. Do you want to store it for tomorrow?”

“Today should be good.”

“Sure thing.”

Koyama went about his morning routine. Coat. Coffee. Reports. Same old, same old. Hands warmed by the coffee, Koyama set it down and wandered all the way down to the end of the hall to where the autopsy bay was. Two bodies lined up on the tables, all under the harsh lighting, washing out their pale features.

“Good morning.” Koyama smiled at them. Not so oddly, they did not smile back. This was his time, the attendants didn’t bother him until he was completely ready to begin, not even the investigators came in while he was preparing. Not after the first time they had watched him. After that, they left him alone. In fact they gave him a wide berth.

Creepy. They called him creepy. But there wasn't anyone better at their job then him; he’d been a good doctor once long ago. Now he could only help this way.

“Did you sleep well? I guess not.”

Today’s guests were a man and a woman. The man was middle-aged, clean-cut, looked like a proper office-type. The other was a young girl, stylish looking type with a loosely curled perm, glittering earrings still attached to her small ears.

“You are so pretty.” He hovered his hand over her forehead and smiled at her young face. Much too young to die. “What are you going to tell me today?” He turned to the man and thought of the body in the freezer. “Will you tell me all of your secrets?” He touched the male’s hair; it was surprisingly soft for a guy’s hair. “Tell me everything about your death.”

He walked to the charts, and tapped the end of his pen on them. “If you please.”

“Doctor?” Yabu poked his head in the door, bangs already clipped back against his forehead and baby blue scrubs. He peeked around the room but said nothing to the corpses present. “Hikaru is running a bit late today.”

“Alright.” Koyama smiled and tipped his head to the assistant, and was left alone with the echoing sound of Yabu’s steps going down the hall. After all, the present company wasn’t the noisiest bunch.

Hikaru came in twenty minutes late, looking ruffled from his speedy rush into work, throwing off his sweater and stumbling towards the change room. ‘Ah, relax, they are not going to get impatient.’

Standing now in scrubs and an apron and watching through the slight haze of the plastic face shield as the first incisions were made, the girl stripped and thin lines made with the scalpel down from her shoulders to the center of her chest and then down to her pubic bone, barely bypassing the belly button. Her flesh yielded easily to the sharp blade, splitting and revealing a fine padding of yellow fat tissue. Somewhere Hikaru hit play on the CD and the music started up, a mix of their favourite top forty songs and dark classical music which just seemed to fit the mood. 

Her face was pretty, kind of bland in a familiar way. The kind of face you’d see all the time. 

Yabu was quick, peeling away the flesh of her chest, the weight of her breast helping pull it to the side, and made quick work of the connective tissue that held it in place. Once both sides were peeled back like the flaps, the ribs glistened wetly under the cover of muscle. Neither attendant blinked at the sound of the bone saw starting up; it was loud in the cavernous room so loud you couldn’t hear yourself think as it buzzed along his skin, changing pitch as it dug into the rib cage, Hikaru handling it and cutting away the ribs. The clavicle and the ribs gave way easily and when it was done Yabu had to yank the chest plate away, the faint crack of an incompletely cut rib cage.

“Sorry.” Hikaru murmured and Koyama smiled at them. They were already splattered with faint little flecks of blood, drying fast to dark red.

Everyone really looked the same on the inside, dark red with the edges of the cut rib cage glistened dull white, the organs in their neat places all packed so perfectly. Heart like some dried up fruit, shriveled and sunken, half-hiding under the meat of the lungs.

They removed the organs by severing the main veins behind the lungs and alongside the trachea. Cutting the major veins always resulted in a flood of blood into the hollowed out cavity and it ran over Yabu’s hands though he didn’t flinch, too used to it, but he did pull a face at Hikaru. He hated that bit.

With the organs in front of him he nodded at them and got to work. He separated them, cool to the touch, dead, long cooled in storage and left in her apartment for a few days. Organs went to Yabu who was weighing them for Hikaru to write down. The random gore went back into the empty shell of the body, a plastic bag so it all fit nicely. Stomach contents were soupy and mostly stomach acid, died hungry. Nothing wrong with the stomach and the intestines don’t look grossly malformed with no history of gastric problems.

Liver was fine. Kidneys, two of them. Good, very good.

Lungs were fine, smoker but not too heavy. Nothing obstructing the lungs, no fluid build up. Ah, what a mystery. She had a lot to say but wasn’t saying it too clearly. He cut out a pieces of all of the above for storage and put them in a bag for later histology if needed.

Trachea was laid flat, the sharp edges of cartilage poking at his fingertips and still no sign of any cause of death. By now Hikaru managed to remove the tongue and epiglottis and laid it down on his table. No bite marks to indicate a seizure, cross-section revealed no trauma either. Yabu moved all her hair out of her way so that he could cut through the thin skin from one temple to the other in order to fold the skin of the skull over her face, exposing the shiny dome of the skull-cap, wet with slick blood. Yabu handed off the bone-saw and the whine of the engine was higher than the music, muting a little when it dug into the thickness of bone. Yabu moved away as bone-dust filled the immediate area. Koyama sliced into the heart, scoring the surface to look at the coronary sinuses. Too young for heart disease but it didn’t hurt to check. He measured the thickness, and the width of all the vessels and chambers.

Nothing abnormal, average down to the aorta diameter.

The brain always made a weird sucking noise when they pulled it out and the music just wasn’t loud enough to cover it. Ripping sounds as Hikaru tugged the dura mater off the inside of the skull and left it in a heap by his elbow. No abnormalities with weight and shape of the brain.

With no other option he marked the cause of death box as pending while the kids were busy sewing her back together. He hated it when he couldn’t find the answer written across the flesh. It was hiding too deep or maybe in the toxicology, still it frustrated him. he signed off on the vials of blood and walking them to the fridge for toxicological analysis later.

It wasn’t until he was cutting up the third body, scalpel half way through the fatty covering of the kidneys, when something that had been bothering him slotted into place. For one crystal clear moment gears in his head turned, click click clicking correctly and the feeling like something on the tip of his tongue just out of reach.

“Ne, Yabu?”

“Yeah?” Yabu was busy pulling the scalp forward on their third guest, an older woman from a old-age home.

“Did Sayaki look familiar to you?”

“Who?” Yabu looked up, and Koyama shrugged.

Well maybe not.

Later that day, Koyama was looking at the photos of the body while eating lunch and there was that niggling again. “You look so familiar my dear.” He murmured against the lip of his coffee cup.

Koyama found Ryo sitting at his desk with his feet up and watching the small television on the desk across from his. Investigation was quiet with everyone either out on call or just not there. Koyama stepped into the room and slunk up to the other man.

“Ryo.” He smiled sweetly and Ryo grunted.

“Koyama.” He nodded back absently, eyes fixed on the television. They probably agreed not to do this at work or something, but there was no one else around and none of the other detectives would listen to him. So if he had Ryo’s balls as a little leverage, he needed to be heard and he could be rather pushy when he needed to be.

“I’ve found something you need to know.” He pulled the folders out.

\--

"Hey, Nishikido, we're going to grab a drink. Are you in?"

Ryo looked up from the stack of papers on his desk, offering Toma a frown and a shake of his head. "I can't." He motioned at the stack of reports in front of him with an ink stained finger, his other hand running through his hair as he gave a tired sigh. "Have fun, though."

"You're missing out." 

"Always do." Ryo smiled halfheartedly and reached for the half-empty cup of coffee, grimacing as he took a sip. Cold. He set it aside and nodded to Toma and the group leaving the station, regretting for a split second his decision to stay. It lasted just long enough for the group to make their way out the door, taking their laughter and off-color jokes with them. The door swung shut and left a near-silence behind in their now empty section of the station, the faint hum of the fluorescent lights overhead and the distant sounds of conversation through the walls the only thing to keep him company.

He took a moment to enjoy the silence, letting some of the tension in his shoulders drain away as he signed off on the current report and pushed it to the side, eyeing the pile that had yet to be done. Paper work, the bane of his existence and the biggest downside to being a cop. Well, maybe not the biggest--there was always traffic duty, something that he was blessedly free of now that he was one of the big shot detectives. He made a face at the pile of papers and reached for his coffee, taking another sip without thinking. 

Funny. He really didn't feel much like a big shot.

An hour and a half and three reports later, Ryo threw his pen down with a sigh and glanced at his watch, frowning at the time. 8:46. Late enough that Koyama would have made it home, but not late enough that he'd reached the point where he was desperate enough to send an awkward text asking if the other wanted to get coffee. Not that they ever actually _got_ coffee. One of these days he was going to drop the pretense and just ask Koyama if he had time for a quick fuck. Maybe.

This was probably a sign that he needed to get out more, maybe make some friends in the area that he could spend time with that didn't involve one of them on their back or knees. Not that he minded that particular brand of socializing. It just seemed like a good idea to have something else to fall back on when he felt like being around another living human being. 

One more glance at his watch and Ryo pushed aside the temptation to reach for his phone, reaching instead for the stack of folders sitting on the corner of his desk where they'd stayed untouched since Koyama had given them to him two days earlier. He flipped the top one open and was greeted by two photos--one photo of a young woman staring up at him, smiling and alive, and the other with the same young woman laid out on the autopsy table, face slack and sallow and lips tinged blue in death. He stared at them both for a long moment, frowning as he reached for the two remaining folders and flipped them open, laying them out in a row across his desk. 

Photos of two more girls stared up at him, both alive and smiling happily at the camera in one photo, both with eyes closed, dead faces a pale shadow of their living ones in another. Frown deepening, he moved the pictures out of the folders, lining them up along the edge of his desk as he started to flip through the reports, eyes skimming. It was mostly information he knew already, things that Koyama had pointed out when he'd left the folders, insisting that there was something here that just wasn't right, but he read it again anyway, trying to make the connection in his own mind.

_Hamada Sayaki. 22. Died March 14. Cause of death unknown._

_Asada Junko. 19. Died January 25. Cause of death unknown._

_Kawano Masami. 21. Died November 7. Cause of death unknown._

All young, all in good health, all with no history of illness or identifiable cause of death. He knew it wasn't unheard of for cause of death to be unknown - there was only so much they could do, even with modern science and techniques after all - but seeing the pictures of the girls like this and having heard what Koyama had to say, he couldn't help but wonder. He flipped through the folders again, reading the reports more closely, trying to pick out something, anything that stood out as odd.

Different neighborhoods, no mutual friends, no shared workplace. One was a high school drop out working nights at a karaoke bar, two were enrolled in University, one majoring in Education and another in History. No history of going to the same schools, no shared connection that would link their deaths together and make them seem anything more than unfortunate, if mysterious, events.

The only things that they had in common were their youth, good health, and the fact that there was no discernible cause of death - not anything that he didn't already see in other reports that passed across his desk. 

It it hadn't been for their faces, he probably would have dismissed it as Koyama dreaming up something that wasn't there.

Looking at the pictures again, though, he had to admit that there was an eerie sort of similarity to the girls' looks. The smiles that shone up at him from their pictures were alike enough that, had he seen them in any other context, he might have assumed that they were sisters or cousins. They all had that same, generic sort of prettiness - enough to be attractive but not enough to stand out in the crowd. The kind of face that made you smile, maybe turn your head for a split second but was just as soon forgotten. 

Even in death they looked enough alike for it to strike a chord with him. It wasn't anything that he would have put together on his own, nothing that would have stood out in his memory and made him connect the three together, but seeing it laid out in front of him like this, he couldn't deny it. 

Koyama was right. There was something _there_ ; the question was what? Aside from their faces and a gut feeling there was nothing to tie the girls together.

Ryo couldn't really bring this up to any of the higher-ups without knowing more. Yes, there might have been something there, but if he didn't know what or why, didn't really know what they could do about it, and he doubted anyone was going to give him permission to use time and resources looking into things further because he had a "feeling". He was too new here to have a reputation or any pull with brass, and it wasn't like he could use Koyama for any added pull. Even if the higher-ups seemed to respect Koyama's opinions, they still bristled if they thought that civilian personnel - even highly skilled ones - were trying to tell them how to do their jobs. 

Besides, that would involve explaining to them why Koyama had come to him and he'd bothered looking at the files in the first place, and he wasn't really dying to tell them just how _persuasive_ Koyama could be. Especially not when said persuasion was something that would at best be a source of never ending shit in the squad room and at worst could end in a demotion and the rest of his days spent writing parking tickets or standing outside a police box, giving directions to tourists and wrangling drunks. Unless he found something else to tie them all together, he really didn't see any tactful way to bring it up.

"Did you know the risk of an early death increases by 60% if you work over three hours of overtime a week?"

Ryo's head was still spinning, trying to puzzle things out as he looked up to find Yoko smiling down at him, a brown paper bag in one hand and a cup of coffee in the other. "I'm a cop. Dying young's part of the job."

"Maybe for you. I was hoping to at least make it to an age where people will feel obligated to give me their seat on the train." Yoko chuckled, taking a seat in the empty chair across from him.

"That's your main motivation?"

"I really hate standing on the train." Yoko leaned forward, setting the bag and the cup of coffee in front of Ryo with a grin.

"What's this?"

"Dinner. I thought you might still be here, so I grabbed extra." 

Ryo frowned and glanced at the bag, the smell drifting across his desk enough to make his stomach rumble. "Maybe I already ate."

"Something that wasn't from the vending machine?"

Ryo sighed and closed the case files slowly, pushing them to the side as he reached for the bag and offered his partner a reluctant smile. "So, what are you doing back here?"

"I have a few reports I needed to finish up." Yoko shrugged and reached for a stack of papers piled on the edge of his desk, thumbing through them until he apparently found the one that he wanted. "I thought I might as well drop in while things were quiet."

Ryo gave a soft grunt in response as he opened the bag and pulled out the take out containers one by one, nearly groaning at the smells that greeted him. Yokoyama had seemed pretty determined to be friends as well as partners since they'd been thrown together shortly after Ryo's arrival ("We Osakans have to stick together, after all!"), and Ryo couldn't say that he really minded it that much. Yoko was a good partner - committed to his job, good at what he did and able to put up with Ryo's moods - and a good person. They were still working on the whole friends thing, but Ryo actually thought they might figure it out with a bit more time.

If Yoko kept insisting on feeding him he thought it actually might not be that long of a process.

The silence that fell around them was surprisingly comfortable, Yoko focusing on his paperwork (and actually being quiet for once) and Ryo on the food in front of him, his eyes occasionally drifting to the pile of folders on the edge of his desk, then to Yoko, then back again, his mind running over the possibilities. It might be useful to have a fresh set of eyes on this, someone impartial. Yoko didn't have any sort of ties to Koyama outside of work and if he saw something, then maybe there really was something to see....

"Ryo?"

"What?"

"Is something wrong? You keep giving me _looks_." Yoko reached up, brushing a hand over his face in a nervous gesture. "Do I have something on my face?"

"What? No," Ryo's face was sheepish as he took another bite of his food, chewing it slowly to avoid having to talk. When he looked up again Yoko was still looking at him, hand wiping absently at his mouth. Ryo laughed and set his chopsticks aside. "There's nothing on your face, I promise."

"I'm just that handsome, then?"

"You wish," Ryo mumbled, avoiding meeting Yoko's eyes as he cleared his throat and reached for the folders from Koyama. "Actually, would you mind taking a look at these for me...?"

"Only if you promise to stop staring at me."

"Deal." Ryo laughed and offered the files to him with an embarrassed smile.

\--

"Honey, I'm home."

Yoko closed the door behind him, announcing his arrival to no one in particular and letting the silence of his apartment greet him. Just like he'd left it this morning, and the day before, and the decade before that.

Shoes and socks were discarded at the entryway, his jacket making it a few more steps inside before it too was abandoned, thrown haphazardly across the table as he crossed the living room on his way to the kitchen. One of the few perks of living alone meant there was no one to chew him out for being a total slob in his own home. 

On more than one occasion he had considered getting a pet. A cat or a small dog or, hell, maybe even a fish; _something_ to make his apartment not feel so stiflingly lonely. Each time he had this thought though his mind was quick to remind him that he had a hard enough time remembering to keep _himself_ fed on a regular basis. What hope did he have for a pet when he was guilty of frequent neglect of his own stomach?

Well, he told himself, tonight would not be one of those food-less nights. Five minutes of rummaging later and he emerged from the kitchen with a styrofoam bowl of instant udon, a pair of chopsticks, and a beer. Yoko's pantry (and apartment as a whole) wasn't exactly bare, just a little on the spartan side. It was enough for him, and that was all that really mattered. 

Making his way back to the living room, he cleared a space on the table to place his dinner amongst the sea of old magazines and discarded reports before sitting down to wait for his noodles to cook. Not the most glamorous of evenings, but Yoko had long ago discarded any delusions of grandeur when it came to his everyday routine. His life was his work and his work was his life. Best not to dwell on it; god knows he had enough on his plate to worry himself sick over without factoring in his mostly nonexistent social life. 

For a brief moment his mind flirted with calling up someone. Colleagues, old academy buddies, his brothers, perhaps a certain long-legged medical examiner... 

He shook his head, trying to derail that train of thought. If it were that easy, he would've done it already. Never mind that the only reason this was an issue was because he was _making_ it one.

Yoko sighed, picking up the remote and flicking the television on. Best not to dwell on it, right? TV was a welcome distraction, even if there was nothing good on at this time at night. Not that there was _ever_ anything good on, but sometimes he got lucky, and it was better than running in mental circles. 

He surfed just long enough for his noodles to finish cooking, leaving the TV on some sort of feel good show while he scarfed down his dinner. He watched a couple minutes before he started to zone out. Wish fulfilment had never really been his thing.

Bored, he let his eyes drift to the pile of papers sitting in a cluttered mass on the right side of his table. Yoko smirked. If the chief saw the way he handled his paperwork... Well, he probably wouldn't be surprised, but that didn't mean he'd be happy either. He continued to scan over the clutter until the edges of a dark red-brown folder caught his attention. The case files Nishikido had handed him the other day. They weren't supposed to take files from the precinct, but only an idiot thought the job ended when you took off your badge at the end of the day. If he was going to stay up until two in the morning mulling over murders regardless, he might as well have the proper information at his fingertips.

He tried not to get attached to cases. _'Never take it personally'_ had been one of the first things his former partner had told him, and while Murakami had talked a lot of shit, he also had the annoying trait of being right most of the time. Being a soft-hearted homicide detective was a recipe for heartache, after all. Nonetheless Yokoyama couldn't stop thinking about the three dead girls. There was something missing from these murders - some sort of invisible string tying them all together - and not knowing the answer was driving him crazy. Clicking the television off, he reached forward and grabbed the files, opening each one and laying them out side by side before him.

The murders were unfortunate - they always were, especially with victims so young - but they weren't anything too far out from the ordinary. The victims all seemed to come from good homes, with no overt motives as to why they had ended face up up on the coroner's table. No outstanding debts, no history of drug use or gang involvement, and of the three, only Asada and Kawano had boyfriends, and both of their alibis checked out. Nothing outright suspicious - just three very average young girls with little in common aside from unclear causes of death and the same marginal attractiveness, neither of which were solid leads. Pretty girls died all the time and for varying reasons, just like everybody else in the world. 

Yoko frowned, finger twanging the tab on his beer can. There had to be something they were overlooking. The crime scenes were all residences, with no sign of forced entry or much of a struggle. Following that line of logic, it wasn't a leap to determine the murderer was someone they knew and trusted, but who? From what he could tell, these girls lived lives entirely separate from one another. Where was the connection?

Yoko sighed and ran a hand up into his hair, looking at the table but not really seeing anything. No matter how much he racked his brain over this, he kept coming back to the same dead ends. They were marginally attractive, they were young, they had unexplained causes of death. Those were the only common factors, even if his gut insisted that there _was something else there._ Sometimes he wished his instincts would be a bit more helpful and explain the reasoning behind these mystery facts they insisted existed. 

He let his eyes wander as he thought, eventually zoning in on one of the magazines poking out from underneath one of the folders. A big breasted girl smiled up at him shyly from the cover, wearing a bikini that looked to be about three sizes too small. Looks-wise, she wasn't much to write home about, but Yoko doubted that was the focus. Her face was playing second fiddle to the scantily clad breasts pressed together between her arms. A.V. girls could be a little plain as long as they were curvy in all the right areas.

A.V. girls...

Yoko sat up like he'd just been zapped with a stun gun, nearly spilling his beer as he grabbed for the magazine and started flipping through it. Page after page of girls in varying stage of undress greeted him, some of them very pretty but most with that same sort of forgettable attractiveness, faces that were easily ignored in favor of breasts and hips, a playground of lace and bare flesh. And amongst the racy pictures were ads for websites, phone lines, and, most importantly, recruiting ads for new models.

Yoko slapped the magazine shut, smiling at the girl on the front cover. "If you weren't in a girly mag, I'd kiss you, Momoko-chan." 

Who said porn never helped anyone? 

All of his weariness from the day seemed to disappear in an instant now that he had something to focus on. There was always the possibility that this guess was way off - carrying a badge didn't make him infallible. Still, moving in the wrong direction was better than staying still scratching his head.

He glanced down at his wristwatch. A quarter past ten - surely Nishikido hadn't gone to bed yet. One of the good things about being partnered with a workaholic meant never worrying about it being too late to call. He retrieved his much abused, aging cell phone from his pocket and scrolled down until Ryo's name came into view, pressing the call button and bringing the device to his ear. Yoko stood up and grabbed his coat, throwing it on hastily while he waited for the call to connect. He couldn't be expected to sit still when he'd finally found a potential lead. 

He had just enough time to gather up all the case files and hurry to the entrance of his apartment when he heard Nishikido pick up, his greeting more a grunt than anything else. Yoko didn't bother to restrain the eager grin as it spread across his face. 

"Nishikido, what do you know about pretty girls?"

\--

He wasn't much bigger than her, but he had leverage, her body pinned to the bed by his legs and a pillow pressed to her face. She was too frantic to think straight and he used that to his full advantage. Let her thrash and tire herself out; it made his job that much easier.

Girls like her were such unfortunate creatures. Always aiming too high above themselves, paying no mind to the hammer that loomed above their heads eagerly awaiting its chance to smash them back down to their level. Pity slunk into his mind to mix with the disgust he felt as he watched her writhe beneath him in a futile attempt to fight him off, and for a brief moment, he almost felt sorry for her. 

The emotion passed as quickly as it came, his fingers pressing the pillow over her horrible, screeching face. They were the ones at fault. The ones who didn't know their place. The ones who had to be taught.

To her credit, she was putting up a considerable fight. It would be admirable if it wasn't so pointless. She'd managed to latch onto his right arm, pink and white nails clawing at the area just above his elbow in desperation, little acrylic bows scratching his skin as she struggled. Ugly things. They would be the first to go.

He pressed harder. 

It didn't take long for her frantic screams to melt into whimpering and wheezing and finally, blissful silence, limbs stilling as the will to fight died along with her. He waited for his heart rate to even out before sitting back on his heels and pulling the pillow with him to admire his work.

Ugly and broken and yet serene despite all her wretchedness. The mask of death was the only thing that looked good on her. 

Tearing his eyes from her, he pulled his cell phone from his pocket to check the time. The room was still theirs for another hour and a half. Not as much time as he'd like but he quashed his disappointment as he reached for the small duffel bag he'd brought in with him. He'd just have to make every second count.

He _would_ fix this one.

\--

“What is he doing here?” Yoko used the rolled-up porno magazine to point in Koyama’s general direction. It was through sheer force of will it seemed that he didn’t blush; Koyama watched his ears turn a little pink and smiled.

This was going to get ugly one way or another, and if he’d known that Yoko would be there too, he probably would have feigned the stomach flu. Or caught it for real, which would have been preferable. It wasn’t that he didn’t like Yoko, it was like he _liked_ Yoko, rather intimately.

Just, Ryo too. Well shit, of course they were partners. Koyama’s absent smile didn’t falter as his mind raced ahead then back again, looping around itself coming back to the same conclusions.

Then again, there was a code among cops. There were just no gay cops, that was the official statement and they were sticking to it, so given that kind of cover Koyama could toy with as many as he wanted and rest assured that they were not going to kiss and tell. But this? This was a little too personal. He liked Ryo in ways he had not liked anyone since he’d been married (it hadn’t been his wife, but that just added to the excitement). Yoko was beautiful, gorgeous lips in a heartbreaking shade of pink, with a lower lip that seemed to be stuck in a perpetual pout. When he ran his hands down Koyama’s back, and they were both naked and sweating, he would kiss like he was desperate for the touch of their tongues and pull him closer. That was the one thing the two of his boys had in common; they seemed like they needed him when they had sex and it was what kept him coming back. Well, that and they had both looked _so good_ when they had to wear their dress clothes.

His night had just turned into a time bomb, tick tick ticking away.

“Well, he was the one who gave me the files, so I thought I’d let him tag along a bit.” Ryo lied like he practiced it, not a single tell. "So I called him." The truth of the matter was that Koyama was already at Ryo's house, tangled in the sheets and kicking them down and off the bed as he slid down Ryo's chest, trailing his tongue over the arch of the other man's rib-cage, Ryo always arched so eagerly towards his mouth. It was rather gratifying. He'd been busy rubbing his lips over the surprising softness of the skin on Ryo's tummy, letting his hard cock bump against his chest, the skin there catching and sliding when the phone went off. He would never doubt Ryo's creativity when it came to curses ever again.

"You did?" Yoko was looking at him and Koyama smiled and waved a bit.

"I did." It seemed sometimes people forgot that he was actually a doctor sometimes, given all the other things that he was good at it wasn’t too surprising. “I was the presiding doctor on the cases.”

They were standing in the parking lot near Yoko's place, Yoko looking at Koyama with squinty eyes, Ryo staring at Yoko daring him to say anything else, and in the buzzing sticky florescent lighting it looked kind of like an old-style show-down.

"Well let’s go inside, it is damp out here." Koyama turned on his heels, heading away from them.

Nothing to break the tension like pretending it wasn't there.

There was a little out of the way kind of bar near here, in the basement of a squat little building made of bright red brick, but it would suit their needs nicely. Since it was a weekday the chances of it being really busy were pretty low. Ryo seemed kind of surly, but that could either be nerves at them being discovered by his partner, or the fact that he'd had to rush the blow job. Either way it had put the shorter man in a bit of a mood. Yoko, on the other hand, was almost bouncing as he walked. A detective with a lead was like a dog with a bone. It was actually rather adorable.

They had a booth tucked away in the corner of the bar, Ryo and Yoko sat across from each other, and Koyama almost laughed out loud at the symbolism as he slid into the booth next to Ryo. It wasn’t like he could share the joke with them.

"So what did you find?" Ryo took to the chase immediately, leaning over the table eyes dark and focused now.

"I think we need to go to the scene." Yoko tapped his chin. "I have a hunch about something that might tie these cases together."

"Since I couldn't classify them as murder, the scene was never really investigated past the preliminary where they picked up the body." Koyama tilted his head to the side and regarded Yoko under his eyelashes. The other man seemed to have trouble meeting his gaze; it was kind of funny and kind of sad at the same time. "There wasn't a lot of evidence, no forced entry, no struggle. Her bed was made and she looked like she had just fallen asleep and never woke up again."

"Well, what is it?" Ryo ignored all the information he already knew about the case.

"Just a gut feeling." Yoko hunched his shoulders a bit, looking a little sheepish. He had the seniority but doubted himself too much. "I want to find her schedule. It would fit if they went to auditions, girls this pretty? It is a possibility. This is Tokyo, anything is possible." He tapped the file holder on the table with his finger and it made a surprisingly sharp sound. He watched Ryo mull over the information, the light of anticipation beginning to flood his features. The thrill of the hunt as they say.

"You know that if we go there it will technically be breaking and entering. This isn't an active case." Ryo's smile said he didn't care and Yoko scoffed.

"Three dead girls." Koyama interjected and they both spared him a glance and a wan smile like he wasn’t quite part of their world.

"Would something as silly as that stop us?" Yoko grinned at him, and Ryo shook his head, running his hand through his hair. They made a pretty stellar team, the two of them.

"I guess not."

"Can we go now?" Koyama asked and they both looked at him again, Ryo's eyebrows drew together.

"I should drop you off at home." Ryo said flatly and Koyama was actually a bit stung by it, he really wasn’t one of them. "This is police work now."

"Nope, not an active investigation." Koyama crossed his arms and stared Ryo down, Yoko's eyes flicked between the two of them looking amused. "Not police work, besides maybe I will find something at the scene that will help me to determine the cause of death." Making sure to keep his gaze locked on Ryo’s he licked his bottom lip, not slow enough to draw attention but Ryo’s eyes zeroed in on the movement anyways.

"He's got a point." Yoko added and Koyama smiled winningly at him, making him look away quickly.

"Whatever." Ryo huffed. Koyama added that to the blow job tab in his head, but to which one?

They woke the super, and Koyama felt a little bad but Yoko flashed his badge and asked if they could have entry into the apartment where she had lived, and more recently died. It was a rather shabby and sad looking place, tiny and rough around the edges but well loved. Her bed was still made, ruffled were the scene-officers took her body. Stack of magazines on the bedside table that Ryo gravitated to, and Yoko began to look through the stuff kept on top of the dresser. It was sad, such a normal room, pretty even. A pretty girl with secrets she wouldn't tell him and a room that spoke no louder. 

Koyama sighed; he'd been a good doctor once, and now what was he doing? He moved into the tiny bathroom to check if there were any medications that the officers had somehow missed that could explain why a perfectly healthy and seemingly well-adapted girl would suddenly drop dead. He could hear the two cops through the opened door - it wasn't a very big place, with her bed taking up most of the room - never more than a quiet word from each other. 

"This is the boyfriend. His alibi was solid." Ryo said, Yoko replied with an affirmative sound. 

Koyama opened the mirror and poked through the contents: birth control, cold medication, head ache medication, skin cleanser, eyelash curler. She has so much stuff and still nothing helpful. He closed the mirror and began to look under the sink. Some cleaning supplies, tampons, a box of hair dye and rust stains, nothing interesting, and the bathtub and behind the toilet yielded similar results. Huffing, he stood back up from his search. The bathroom was so tiny there was no where he could stand without being able to see the mirror, it just showed him looking tired and a little pale. He hadn't been sleeping well lately and all the rain was going to make him sick. How many mornings had she stood right here, pressed against the sink so she could do her make-up in this mirror? The bottom of the shower was dyed from when she had tried to do it herself and there was hair stuck to the walls. Her vanity hadn’t been the cause of death and there were no other clues here.

"Find anything?" Yoko was at the door, looking at him directly for the first time all night and Koyama felt a small shiver go down his spine, smiling slowly, loosely. Yoko rolled his eyes. 

"Not really." He waved his hand in a gesture to encompass the bathroom in general. "Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary. She had a lot of make-up."

"What girl doesn't?" He answered absently then Ryo was at his shoulder giving Koyama an assessing gaze. 

"What do you know about girls anyhow? You've got brothers. Nothing here?" 

"Nope." Koyama shook his head and Ryo sighed, leaving again. Yoko followed him, and Koyama followed after that. 

It took them another half an hour of searching to locate an old day planner in a purse under the bed. Koyama flipped through a few pages before handing it to Ryo whom was standing at his shoulder watching him dig through the trunk of purses. The subtle heat of his body so close to Koyama had been a little distracting and he kept licking his lips when they wouldn't stay moist. If either of the detectives noticed they didn't say anything. Koyama always had been relatively easy to distract, and the present company was rather distracting. When he'd first slept with Yoko he'd sort of known that he knew Ryo but really hadn’t thought it went further then talk of sports in the locker room. He and Ryo had been 'steady' (off and on and off, then out of the blue on) since the other man had arrived here all shiny and new. Somehow it had never occurred to him that one day, just maybe, he would have to deal with both men at once. Well there was a thought; sadly, not a helpful one. 

"This should help." Ryo nodded at it and put it in the bag Yoko had been carrying.

"We'll keep looking." Yoko was over at a small bookshelf going through everything he could find there.

"When we've got time, we'll make some calls, check out this book, talk to the family maybe." Ryo shrugged. Koyama nodded and went back to digging.

\--

The next morning he was exhausted, stayed out too late playing police officer (and not the sex game, oddly one he had never played), dashing through puddles on his way in and getting soaked because he'd managed to forget his umbrella this morning. It was cold rain, making the ground slick, and the puddles all shone silver as they reflected the bright and cloudy sky. It wasn't the most pleasant of mornings, and he really didn’t know the half of it yet.

He nodded to all the familiar faces and tried not to feel too sodden, squelching as he walked down the stairs, the chill getting under his skin.

"Good morning, Yabu." He nodded at the tall man and got a smile in return, then there was an older woman with her hair in a tight bun and taught angry lines around her mouth assessing him with cool eyes. "Good morning." He ducked his head at her, feeling a little ridiculous dripping all over the floor, the longer bits of his bangs sticking to his face and the rest of it hanging limp over his ears and neck.

"Doctor Koyama?"

"I'll be with you in a moment." With a small bow he slipped into his office and let the door close behind him. There was a spare shirt in one of his drawers and it would have to do, he couldn't very well do his job without shoes so they would have to stay wet for the time being. How he hated wet feet. He toweled his beyond-ruined hair dry quickly, his fingers catching in the tangles as he tried to style it uselessly and changed. He would have to do without an undershirt today. 

"Yes, hello." He tossed the towel back into the bottom drawer and opened the door to let the lady in. He retreated around his desk, keeping it between him and her sharp eyes. "Can I help you with something?" Outside, Yabu was moving papers around and trying to pretend like he wasn't listening. Hikaru was late, but that was nothing new.

"My name is Hamada Mitsuru, Hamada Sayaki was my daughter." Koyama nodded, trying to keep his face from showing anything. Well, sometimes these things just happened. "You were the presiding doctor correct?"

"Yes," he nodded. He could still see her face, partially because he'd been obsessing over the connection and partially because he remembered a lot of his unfortunate patients. She had had her mother’s gently sloping nose and pointy pixie chin. "She was a very pretty girl. I am sorry for your loss."

The woman paused, looking lost in thought for a moment, and Koyama smiled gentle at her. She looked a lot less scary now, and more like a woman trying to hide her grief behind traditional Japanese stoicism.

"I have come to collect her effects. I am sorry I couldn’t make it earlier, I had to work. I couldn’t get time off, but you know, she was my only child." The woman said sadly and Koyama could only smile at her, "I tried to bring her up myself but she would never listen."

"That's how children are."

"Do you have any?" She held her purse a shade too tightly to try and stop the trembles he could see along the tiny angles of her shoulders; he politely pretended not to notice. 

"No."

"She--" The woman paused and stared Koyama down. This was pretty normal; the dead were lucky they couldn't hurt anymore but their loved ones were left trying to come to terms with the empty shell of a person left there and Koyama was who took care of these bodies, a final physical link. "She wanted to come to Tokyo to be a star. Her dad used to tell her how pretty she was all the time and she really thought she could do it. We needed her at home to help with the store but she wouldn't stay. I told her, I--the last thing I said was that she wasn't going to make it, and if she left, to never come back."

She cried, but it was silent tears, face like a crumpled drawing.

"Stay here," Koyama rose, bringing his box of tissues over to her and patting her shoulder comfortingly, "I will go and collect Sayaki's belongings for you. She was very pretty, I’m sure you did your best." She bowed her head as he accepted the tissues. He closed the door behind him.

"How many today?" He asked Yabu who was normally hovering near the door, curious as to what the parents and next of kin wanted. Most just wanted last rites with the body, some wanted to specify where they were to be cremated. Some wanted to know if Koyama would embalm them. Today Yabu was sitting at his desk looking pallid; maybe he was getting sick too.

"Just two." He answered in a strained voice. "Doctor. There is something." He looked down at his desk, face turning faintly green. "I think you need to see it for yourself." Koyama tilted his head to the side and regarded his assistant through the fall of his bangs, and nodded.

"Okay, I will." He pat Yabu's fluffy hair the way he did when his cat looked upset and set off for the vault first. He had business to attend to.

An hour later Koyama got his first look at the body. He'd done residency with a trauma surgeon and he still flinched when he saw it. Broken and carved like a choice of meat, it was sticky with random bits of gore, a girl under all the mutilation. No wonder Yabu was shaken, the kid was too fresh for this yet.

"Hello," he said faintly, hoping that there wasn't still a soul trapped in there. "What secrets do you have for me?" What was left and hadn't already been carved from the bone?

The hands were completely mutilated, the ends of the fingers and the tops of her ears in a bio-hazard bag next to her. She was naked aside from the deep cuts that covered her body. Up and down her arms, and her legs, ribs like a fillet, her face was completely unrecognizable, nose and lips hack away it seemed. He took a deep breath, too used to the feel and smell of decay for it to stick in his lungs the way it did that morning.

After the autopsy, the only thing he could feel good about was that she'd been dead before someone did this too her, and none of the cuts were the cause of death. With this much damage it was impossible to tell what was the cause of death, but all of the trauma was peri-to post-mortem injury.

Peeling out of the flimsy paper apron, splattered with blood from trying to piece together the organs again for a look at them, his feet were still wet and the thick smell of blood was in the chilly air settling deep in his lungs. It was not shaping up to be a good day. The second person had no apparent cause of death, so he sent both the samples up to toxicology as well for a drug screen. The three of them were a little more subdued in the office, and when he closed his eyes he could still see the grizzly shine of skin and meat hacked away from bone.

Somehow it was scarier when he wasn't the one doing it.

\--

"Two bottles of beer and whatever's on special." Yoko gave the waitress a winning smile and Ryo watched her turn and scurry off to do waitress-y things with a slight frown. "If you're worried about her spitting in your beer, she doesn't seem the type. Don't worry."

"What?"

"You're frowning." Yoko smiled, the expression friendly, if a little strained around the edges. "Unless you wanted to do the ordering? I'll let you order next time if it means that much to you."

Ryo realized that the other was right and forced his expression to relax, shaking his head. "No, it's not that." He ran a hand through his hair and let out a long breath, searching for the right words. He wasn't sure if he'd ever find any. Even if he'd felt comfortable telling Yoko about his particular preference in bed partners (and he definitely did _not_ , especially given the looks that Yoko seemed to be giving him since the other night with Koyama), he had no clue where to begin. He didn't do relationship talk with co-workers. Hell, he didn't even really do relationships. Not officially, anyway. "Just tired."

"You're sure that's all?" Yoko stared at him with that same expression that Ryo had caught him wearing several times over the past week, like there was a thought right on the tip of his tongue. Every time Ryo thought Yoko might actually come out and say it it would be gone again, just like that. Not that Ryo was sure he wanted to know what the thought was. Especially if it had to do with Koyama. 

Which it probably didn't. He was just reading too much into things. You could be friends with a guy you worked with without fucking. He and Yoko were almost friends and there was nothing going on there. Then again, he highly doubted Yoko enjoyed giving blow jobs quite as much as Koyama did.

"Yeah, that's it." Ryo half-smiled, glad when Yoko nodded and gave him a slight smile. He liked that Yoko knew when not to push. It made him a good partner. Ryo really didn't want to screw this up. 

"You know what always makes a long day better?" Yoko grinned at the blank look that Ryo gave him. "Lots of booze."

"We have to work tomorrow." The edges of Ryo's lips twitched upwards in spite of himself. "Early."

Yoko sighed and pouted slightly, shrugging his shoulders. "Well, I had to try. Would you settle for a couple beers and more meat than is probably healthy?"

"That works."

The beer was lukewarm and the meat was only halfway decent, but the conversation during dinner was enough to relax him. They traded stories about their days as beat cops, one of the topics, along with their respective childhoods in Osaka, that was always safe to fall back on. It was nice and simple and made him forget for a moment that this wasn't strictly a social call. He was even a bit surprised when the conversation drifted back to work.

"I called around to some A.V. studios today. No one matching Sayaki's name or description worked for them." Yoko stopped and took a sip of beer, as if he was giving Ryo a moment to mull the words over. "Same with the other girls. A few places mentioned that they had a couple of girls go A.W.O.L., but they said that's common - girls moving back home, finding other jobs, having kids."

"Hm." Ryo took another sip of his beer, his face thoughtful. "Nothing in her planner that seems to point to that, either. Maybe it's not A.V., then? A model, maybe? Her mother said she moved here to become a star."

"You talked to her mother?" Yoko leaned forward with an eager look.

"No, Koyama did."

"Oh." And there it was, that look again, brief but very real and more than enough to make Ryo want to squirm in his seat. As it was, he could feel his cheeks coloring slightly. "She came to get her daughter's things?"

Ryo nodded, reaching for his beer and taking a drink, using it as an excuse to take a moment to compose himself. He was a cop. Koyama was an M.E. It made sense that they would talk. Never mind that said talk generally took place while they were tangled up in sweat soaked bedsheets. "Yeah, the other day. The same day we got the Watanabe case."

Yoko pulled a face at that and Ryo felt himself wincing in sympathy. They were both young and by no means as hardened as a lot of their older colleagues, but that particular case had gotten to them all. It was one thing to see someone dead - shot, stabbed, strangled. It was another to see someone carved up like a piece of meat. Even the guys downstairs who dissected bodies for a living hadn't taken it well.

"Did Koyama say anything else?"

Not anything that pertained to the case or that Ryo really wanted to share. Ryo pushed the thought back. "Not much. They had a falling out, so the mother didn't really know much about her life here. No indication she was in A.V., though."

"I doubt she'd tell her mom that, anyway." Yoko's face was thoughtful as he swirled the last dregs of beer around in his glass. "So, we just need to figure out another angle, then. You already mentioned models - what else is there? Actress, singer...."

"Idol?"

Yoko stilled, setting his beer down abruptly. "Wait - that's it."

"What's it?" 

"I can't believe we didn't realize." Yoko tapped his fingers against the table, his mouth turning up into a wry smile. "Idols have to get pictures for their portfolios, right? The picture of Masami - there was a name printed in the corner."

"Yeah, the photography studio." Ryo frowned, a half-formed thought tugging at the back of his brain. Something was there, he just wasn't sure what.

"That's what I thought, but what if it wasn't? What if it was an agency name?"

"A casting agency?" Ryo arched an eyebrow. It made sense. "If I were a girl who moved here looking to make it big, that's probably the first place I'd try."

"No offense, but if you were a girl I don't think you'd have much of a shot at making it big. You don't really have the legs for a dress."

"Shut up." The words were half-hearted as Ryo rolled his eyes at the other, that niggling feeling in the back of his mind growing stronger. He reached for his bag and dug around, pulling out the day planner and flipping through the first few pages. "What was the name on that picture?"

"It ended with -moto. Matsumoto? Morimoto? Wait... no. Domoto."

Ryo swore softly under his breath, flipping a few more pages in the day planner, stomach fluttering with the excitement that always came with finding a new lead. He turned the planner and laid it out in front of Yoko, pointing to characters written in bright purple gel ink. He'd overlooked it before, assuming it was the name of a friend or acquaintance and pushing it to the back of the list of possible leads. "Domoto."

Yoko whistled and looked from the page to Ryo, his face breaking out into an eager grin. "Looks like we've found our link."

\--

There was something inherently ugly about the way someone cried when they thought no one was looking. Red, runny nose, puffy eyes, needy looks. It hurt to watch, the raw neediness of it. The only crying that was ever attractive was all carefully planned, artistic and fake and free of emotion, projected on a movie screen, larger than life and shining.

The girl at the end of the hall obviously had some idea how unattractive her tears made her if the way her hands hovered around her face, blocking it from view was any indication. Pretty hair, mostly pretty face, but still wrong. Imperfect. She didn't belong here.

He dug a pack of tissues from his pocket and stopped in front of her, leaning over slightly as he offered them to her with a sympathetic smile. "You look like you need this."

"Thank you." She sniffled and reached for the tissue with a grateful smile, dabbing delicately at her eyes.

Skinny. Too skinny, all knobby fingers and collarbone and flat chest. The longer he looked, the more she looked like a gangly teenage boy dressed up in his sister's castoffs, right down to the knock off Coach bag and the faux fur trim on her coat. "They turned you down?"

She nodded and made a soft noise like a wounded animal, the same noise they made when he pushed the pillow against their faces, frightened and disbelieving. He kept the polite smile on his face, expression holding a bland sort of sympathy even as his heart sped a little.

"Sorry." She dabbed at her eyes again, the action leaving mascara smeared around her eyes, dark webs that only highlighted her other imperfections - wide set eyes, high forehead, nose just a bit too wide. "I must seem so silly, crying like this."

"You're not the first." He laughed, soft and welcoming and effortless - the kind of laugh his mother had taught him as a child, the kind that made people like you. "If I had 100 yen for every time I saw a girl crying here--"

"You'd be a rich man?" She smiled then, weak and trusting. It was the wrong kind of smile, too genuine and fragile. You never got anywhere with a smile like that. It made you look weak.

"Something like that." He offered her another tissue, eyes flickering for a moment to her overdone nails, his mind remembering the last time he'd seen nails like that. They'd looked much better afterward, with her fingers splayed across the red stained sheets, laid out like a broken doll that he couldn't quite put back together again. Next time, though. Next time he'd get the pieces to fit. 

"I don't usually cry." It was a lie, but he smiled anyway, holding the packet of tissues up and waiting patiently for her to take another. "I just really thought I had this one."

He nodded, reaching out to touch her elbow, brief and platonic, friendly comfort from a stranger. "There will be others." The sympathy in his voice was true, even if the words weren't. There were others, but they'd never be for her. She'd keep going and keep failing again and again and again, until she gave up, used up and worn down. 

"Yeah, I know. I just have to keep trying, right?"

"That's all you can do, isn't it?" He met her eyes, transfixed for a brief moment, lost in the memory of a knife blade slipping into quickly cooling flesh and bits of girl clinging to his fingers, thick and red and real. He wondered what she would look like under his fingertips, how her body would yield to him. Maybe he could get her right, fix her up in a way he hadn't quite managed the last time, too wound up and unsure to hold the knife steady.

Trial and error, just like anything else. Practice made perfect. Last time had been practice, but he could make her perfect.

"Yes." She smiled then and he could feel the familiar tug of need in the pit of his stomach. It was soon, too soon, but it was hard to resist when he could already picture the way she'd look lying still and the lines he'd trace in her skin. "Thank you again."

"You're welcome - I'm sorry, I didn't get your name."

"Matsuda Satomi." 

"Matsuda-san." She smiled at the sound of her name, shy and entirely too sweet. "Would you like to go get some coffee? There's a great shop a few blocks from here."

"That would be--" The sound of familiar but forgettable bubblegum girl pop cut her off and he forced his frustration not to show as she smiled apologetically and opened her purse to dig for her phone. 

He kept the bland smile on his face as she flipped her phone open, using the brief conversation as an excuse to size her up. The more he looked, the stronger the urge grew to take everything wrong that he could see with her and make it right. It really wouldn't take that long. If he invited her out now he could still be home in time for a late dinner....

"Sorry." She snapped her phone shut and stuffed it in her purse, her cheeks flushing a light pink and a guilty look in her eyes. "That was my boyfriend. We're supposed to meet for dinner."

"I guess we'll take a rain check on the coffee, then." He reached in his pocket and drew out a crisp white business card, holding it out with both hands and bowing his head slightly. She giggled softly, as if she wasn't used to the formality, and took it from him, bowing her head in return. "Give me a call when you're free."

"I will," she promised, still blushing as she turned and walked away, stopping halfway out the door to turn and call out a goodbye. He waited until she'd disappeared completely to let the smile drop from his face, heart still racing. It was probably better this way. He was still too wound up from his last efforts. He needed time to pull his thoughts together so he could get the next girl just right.

\--

By some strange stroke of luck, there was not one, but two casting agencies in town listed under the name Domoto. They were still part of the same umbrella company but had branched out far enough to be considered separate entities. At least, that's what the internet said. All Yoko really cared about was that this meant more footwork for him and Nishikido.

Pulling his car into the parking garage, Yoko hopped out of the vehicle and made his way into the main lobby of Domoto Endlix, wondering if Nishikido had made any progress over at Domoto SHOCK yet. These cases still weren't officially assigned to them - hell, as far as the majority of the precinct was concerned, they were low priority, unassociated deaths - so the amount of time they were allotted to work on them was disparagingly slim. Splitting up the workload meant they could cover more ground quickly.

A security guard posted at the door tried to stop him, but all it took was a flash of the badge and Yoko was escorted up six floors to a lobby full of chattering girls and asked to wait until someone from the company could come see him. Yoko sank into a plush armchair, eying the surroundings warily. He felt out of place in his crumpled suit and crooked tie, a splash of drab brown and green in a sea of pinks and whites and yellows, bleach blonde hair and practiced smiles. 

A couple of the girls gave him uneasy glances and he flashed them a peace sign, trying not to let his ego get too bruised when they immediately turned away to whisper in hushed tones. He had never had much luck with women in general; idols in training were probably light years out of his league. 

Thankfully Yoko didn't have long to ruminate on the failings of his love life before a young man came down the hall and walked straight up to him. "Detective Yokoyama, was it?"

Yoko jumped to his feet, taking the hand proffered to him and giving it a hesitant shake. The man couldn't have been older than his early twenties, with a slight build and a face that would make a supermodel gnash her teeth in envy. Was there anyone at this company that didn't look like they had hopped out of the pages of a fashion magazine? 

Yoko meant to say a proper greeting. Unfortunately, his mouth had other ideas. "Christ, you're pretty."

The young man had the good grace to look surprised for all of a second before the expression was replaced with a perfectly polite smile, cheeks coloring nicely and waving his hand as if to shoo away any further compliments. "No, no."

"Seriously, I'd totally sleep with you. If you were a girl." The last part Yoko added hastily after he realized he'd let his mouth run away from him for the nth time in his existence. Hitting on pretty boys while on duty was probably not the type of P.R. the Tokyo police force would look kindly upon.

The young man smiled, a little strained around the edges, and forced a laugh. "Thank you, I guess."

"I'm glad you took that as a compliment. Most people see it as a threat." Yoko said with a lopsided grin, letting go of the other's hand hastily. When in doubt, comedy was a good way to diffuse the tension. 

His tactic seemed to have worked as the young man laughed, though his smile remained too forced to be entirely natural. "I'm Matsumoto-san's assistant, Tegoshi. Matsumoto-san apologizes for not meeting you himself, but he's currently on a conference call. Is there anything I can help you with?"

"Matsumoto? I thought Domoto ran the show here."

There was that polite smile again. Yoko wondered if he didn't practice it every day in the mirror to get it so perfectly innocuous. "President Domoto is on a photo shoot in Okinawa at the moment. Matsumoto-san is the acting president while he's away."

"Well, as long as I get my questions answered, I suppose it doesn't matter who does it," Yoko muttered, scratching his neck idly. "So, can I have a word with Matsumoto?"

Yoko thought he saw Tegoshi's smile falter for a moment but he was quick to school his expression. "I'm sorry, but Matsumoto-san is currently--"

"Trust me, kid, this is worth his time. Unless," Yoko closed the gap between them, jabbing his thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the gaggle of applicants rubbernecking behind them and dropping his voice, "you _want_ us talking about possible criminal charges being brought against your company where the girls can hear."

It was a bluff, of course, but Tegoshi didn't know that. He seemed to consider it for a moment, taking in their surroundings and the hungry eyes of the idol wannabes before relenting, mouth forming a thin line. "Follow me, please." Score for team good guys. Yoko: 1. Uptight corporate world: 0.

Tegoshi led him through the glass door off to the left of the lobby, keeping a brisk pace as he walked. The hallways were lined with posters of the company's stars through the years, pretty young things that had somehow proven themselves more deserving of the limelight than their peers. Occasionally a plaque with a record or cd of varying metallic shades would break up the monotony of idol posters, boasting impressive sales figures and words like "Best" and "Number One." Yoko whistled appreciatively. Definitely better than what the A.V. offices had to offer. No wonder the girls preferred this route.

A couple of turns later and they came to a pair of wooden French doors, heralding their arrival at the end of the hallway. Tegoshi held open one of the doors and directed Yoko inside, making sure to close it silently behind them. The room he entered was impressive, with large glass windows and cushy couches. Yoko was pretty sure they could fit his entire apartment in the place and still have some space left over. In the middle of the room sat a large wooden desk, two chairs on either side and a third facing the entrance, a thin young man with an expression far too serious for his face sitting in it. 

The man Yoko assumed was Matsumoto looked up from his call, phone still pressed to his ear and hand wrapped around the receiver. He cast a perplexed glance at Yoko before giving a more pointed look at Tegoshi, but if his assistant was affected by it, he didn't let it show on his face. Making a brief gesture for Yoko to stay where he was for the moment, Tegoshi walked over to Matsumoto's side and leaned in, cupping his hand around his mouth and whispering into Matsumoto's free ear. Yoko watched as Matsumoto's perfectly groomed eyebrows drew together, dark eyes sparing Yoko a guarded stare as he nodded and shooed Tegoshi away. The assistant in turn bowed his head briefly, once at Matsumoto and once at Yoko as he passed him, before slipping back out through the double doors and leaving Yoko alone with the acting president of Domoto Endlix.

"It looks like something has come up on my end, so I'm afraid we're going to have to cut this call short for now. Have Kamenashi call me in thirty minutes with figures from the TBS contract. Yes. And someone contact Park-san; you know he's the only one Hayashibara will allow to touch her hair." Matsumoto nodded, eyes glued to Yoko. He waved a hand, gesturing for Yoko to take a seat in one of the chairs attached to his desk. Yoko shook his head politely and ignored the raised eyebrow that earned him. This wasn't a social call, after all. Besides, he felt more in control of the situation when he had the height advantage. 

Yoko waited until Matsumoto had placed the phone back in its cradle before approaching the desk, flashing his badge as was routine. "Yokoyama, Tokyo Police Department. Sorry to interrupt your work but I was wondering if you couldn't help us out with a case."

"Certainly," Matsumoto said, folding his hands on the desk in front of him. "What can we do for you?" 

"I need information on some possible applicants of yours. We're not sure on an exact timeline, but we think all three were seen here sometime in the past six months." Yoko retrieved a few documents from his inner coat pocket, laying them down on the desk and scooting them towards Matsumoto. A piece of lined paper with the names, phone numbers, and last known addresses of the three victims scribbled down, and photocopies of the victims' pictures. 

Matsumoto stared down at the images briefly, fixing Yoko with a crooked smile. "Not to be rude, Detective, but do you know how many girls come through here in a week?"

"The thing is, most of those girls are still around to talk about it. These three weren't so lucky."

Matsumoto's eyes flicked to the pictures again, then back up to Yoko, confused. "I'm sorry?" 

Yoko leaned in and picked up the picture of Masami, holding it up to Matsumoto's face before placing it down on the desk in front of him. "Dead." Next was Asada's picture. "Dead." Finally, Kawano, completing the trio. "Dead. I know for a fact that two of them have had some sort of contact with your company recently. I'm sure if I dig hard enough, we can prove the third, as well." 

The action had the expected response. Matsumoto blanched, staring down at the pictures lying before him as if they were inconceivable things. To be fair, he probably wasn't told when his applicants were offed on a frequent basis, if at all.

Yoko placed his hands on the desk's polished surface, looming over Matsumoto. "If I need to get a warrant..."

"No," Matsumoto snapped, swallowing a lump in his throat and facing Yoko. "No, that won't be necessary. We'll do whatever we can to help." Matsumoto's eyes drifted downwards again, lingering on the dead girls' smiling faces. "You're sure these girls came to our company?"

Yoko tapped the picture of Masami. "That's your watermark, isn't it?"

"So it is," Matsumoto smiled bitterly. "We see a lot of girls in six months; It'll probably take a while to go through all the applicant records. I'll have my assistant take your contact information and call you should anything come up." Matsumoto stood finally, offering his hand to Yoko. Did anyone just bow around here anymore? Evidence of the progressive business world, maybe. Not Yoko's scene in the least. 

He'd barely had enough time to shake Matsumoto's hand and thank him for his cooperation when, as if by magic, Tegoshi was at his elbow, ushering him to a little desk stationed just outside of Matsumoto's office. He took Yoko's card as well as all the other information the detective offered him, scribbling wordlessly onto his little tablet computer.

Yoko rubbed his chin as he stared at the boy. He might have looked a little wet behind the ears, but he was also personal assistant to the second in command at this agency. The possibility that he knew something relevant to the case was too high to ignore. Spare copies of the victims' photos were fished out from his pockets, unfolded gently and placed on the desk between them. "I don't know if you're the person to ask but do any of these girls look familiar to you?"

Tegoshi stilled, looking at Yoko uncertainly before daring to glance at the pictures laid out for him. He took the picture of Hamada in his fingers, staring at the dead girl as if he were trying to commit every one of her features to memory. His concentration was only broken when Yoko leaned in to try and gauge his reaction to the images. Tegoshi smiled apologetically. "There's something familiar about them but I..."

"You don't recognize them." Yoko sighed. He'd meant it as a question but it came out more as a resigned statement of the facts.

"Forgive me for saying so but they're all sort of unremarkable, and I don't work directly with our applicants." Tegoshi offered Yoko the sympathetic version of his well-practiced smile. "I'm sorry."

Yoko felt his lips twist into a wry grin. Oh well. It hadn't hurt to ask. "I'm sure you see much prettier every day." Only after he had folded the images back up and tucked them safely away in his pocket did he notice Tegoshi staring at him, a cautious expression on his face. 

"Did... something happen to them?"

Yoko paused, taking in the young man seated before him. Tegoshi looked troubled, his eyebrows knit together and his bottom lip between his teeth. Had these girls finally caused a crack in his polite little facade? "Let's just say they're not going to be going to any more auditions."

All the other man offered was a soft _oh_ in response, bowing his head and covering his mouth with his hand. Yoko immediately felt bad for the kid. Maybe he shouldn't have told him. Then again, if this investigation was moving in the direction he guessed it was, Tegoshi was bound to hear about it sooner or later. That didn't mean he couldn't feel sorry for being the bearer of bad news.

"It's not your fault, kid. Stuff like this happens all the time."

Tegoshi nodded, making a muffled, whimpering noise. When he looked up again a few seconds later his eyes were wide, searching. "If there's anything I can do..."

Yoko smirked, shrugging a little. At least his heart was in the right place. "Keep me posted. And pay attention to the forgettable ones in the meantime, I guess."

\--

"If you don't sit still I'm going to nail your ass to the chair."

Yoko frowned, looking up when Nishikido snatched the pen he'd been nervously clicking for the past ten minutes. It had been over two hours since his trip down to the talent agency and still no contact from Endlix. Ryo had only returned thirty minutes prior, though with him came the news that SHOCK had no record of any of those girls in their databases. All their hopes were now riding on this gambit and Yoko was on pins and needles waiting for the results. "Gimme back my pen."

"Are you going to stop making so much goddamn noise?" 

"It helps me focus," Yoko tried not to sound like he was sulking, but was pretty sure he'd failed miserably at that. 

"Look," Ryo said with a sigh, "I want these results as much as you do, but driving us both up a wall isn't going to make time go any faster. Just... I don't know. Shut up and stop annoying everyone in the vicinity, okay?" 

Yoko made a face, swiping his pen back from Nishikido's hand. "Were you born an asshole or did you just grow that way?"

"Yeah, well, if being a dick was a crime, they would've locked you up ages ago."

"Oh, like you're the poster boy for polite society!"

Ryo just smirked and went back to his work, Yoko following him reluctantly a moment later. They managed some form of normality for about five minutes before Yoko started fidgeting again. Two minutes later, Ryo was grabbing his pen and hiding it in his desk, causing Yoko to jump from his chair and declare rather loudly that he needed a smoke break. They both needed it lest they kill each other before the results even came in.

Grabbing his coat, Yoko headed for the roof, making a small detour to talk business with Ninomiya a few desks down. It seemed the other had his hands full with a case that was looking more and more like a murder-suicide. Yoko almost envied him. At least those were generally very cut and dry. Perp decides it's time to die and takes his or her significant other-child-family member-enemy-insert person of note here along for the ride. Sad, but not something they typically lost sleep over. At least the motives in those situations were usually much more apparent. 

He didn't bother mentioning the three dead girls. There was still the possibility that their investigation was a wild goose chase, and it seemed silly to bring it up when they'd been handed an incredibly high-profile case not even a week ago. Yoko shuddered as he recalled the Watanabe crime scene in his mind. It didn't matter how much training they'd had; nothing prepared them for the sight of a body desecrated to that level, carved up and flayed like something out a bad horror movie. But in the real world, the blood and gore weren't anything as innocent as corn syrup and gelatin. 

With a pat on the shoulder, Yoko left Ninomiya to his work and finished his trek up to the roof to revel in the company of sweet, sweet nicotine. The area was remarkably abandoned; Yoko wasn't sure if this was a good thing or not. Having no one around to talk to left him alone with his traitorous, overactive brain. At the same time, he was wound so tightly he wasn't sure if he could really handle entertaining someone else. 

Walking around to the little nook behind the roof entrance, Yoko let his shoulders slump, leaning on the railing lining the rooftop as he lit his cigarette. He took a long drag, holding it in, allowing the smoke to swirl about in his lungs, only to let all of his tension exit him in a blue-gray plume. Ah, nicotine. The one thing that never failed to calm his frazzled nerves. He fondly remembered the days when a pack lasted him a whole week. Now he was lucky if he went three days before hitting up a convenience store for more. 

With the nicotine coursing through his body, it was much easier to keep his mind from running a kilometer a minute. He willed himself to zone out, hoping his brain would comply this once and leave him in silence for at least a few minutes. Just a tiny respite from the constant worried chatter of what if.

He didn't know how long he'd been out of it. Only that one second he was staring off into nothing and the next there was a lithe arm snaking around his middle and a soft, familiar voice in his ear. "These things will kill you, you know."

"So will you if you keep creeping up on me!" Yoko whined, scowling at Koyama and trying to get his heart rate back to a manageable rhythm. He was pretty sure the task involved more nicotine. Koyama seemed to be having similar thoughts, grabbing Yoko's wrist and bringing the cigarette to his lips, smirking as he inhaled. The detective pouted. "You'd also be a lot more convincing if you didn't steal a drag from me after saying that, Doctor."

"Just making sure you know the score," Koyama chuckled, his eyes burning into Yoko's skin. "And I can be plenty convincing."

Yoko snorted softly. He didn't have to be told that. Being around Koyama in general made him jittery, and it was even worse when they were at headquarters where anyone could walk in on them. Still, he couldn't resist wrapping an arm around Koyama's shoulders when the other started nuzzling at the area under Yoko's jaw, kittenish kisses along the soft skin of his neck. 

"This isn't the best place to do this, you know."

"You're being paranoid again."

"Can you blame me?" Yoko murmured, pulling Koyama's body closer. "It's my job to not trust anyone."

Koyama laughed again, that airy chuckle that drove Yoko crazy. "You trust me, though, right?"

Maybe too much, Yoko thought, threading his fingers into Koyama's hair and pulling him close for hungry kisses, lips fighting for superiority against one another. Koyama always awoke some sort of primal need in him, the loneliness and jealousy mixing to create something desperate and terrible. A frantic kind of desire that manifested itself in stolen kisses on rooftops and wandering hands behind closed doors. There was something so intoxicating about the other man, and the more Yoko fought it, the more he felt like he was being sucked out to sea by the undertow of emotion raging in him. 

The cigarette had fallen off to the wayside, both of Yoko's hands wandering the contours of Koyama's body and trying to sneak beneath his clothes when a noise appeared to cut through the tempest in his head. This time he heard the sound of the roof door loud and clear, though even if he hadn't, Nishikido's voice ringing out after probably would've done a good job of catching his attention. "Oi, Yoko!"

The two parted instantly, patting down clothing and trying to make some distance between them like they hadn't just been trying to devour each other. It stung, having to sneak around like this, but the alternative was not really a viable option as far as Yoko was concerned. Too many questions, too many things at risk. If lying meant he kept his job then he would lie like it was going out of style.

Once he'd managed to groom himself to acceptable levels of shabbiness, Yoko called out for his partner, picking up his cigarette from where he'd dropped it. It was mostly gone, almost burnt down to the filter, but there was the charade to keep up. 

Ryo rounded the corner, stopping dead in his tracks and face falling when he realized his partner was not alone. Nishikido looked at them both critically, eyes eventually setting on Koyama. "What're you doing here?" Yoko almost snorted. Deja vu? Perhaps Koyama just enjoyed playing his version of the Three Musketeers too often. 

"Smoke break," Koyama smiled simply. Sometimes Yoko wondered how he could lie so easily, but then, Yoko was not one to talk either. Not that he was really _lying_ to Ryo. He was just... conveniently leaving out certain bits of info. Or whole chunks of his personal life, as it were.

Something strange passed across Ryo's face when he looked at them, spurring Yoko's paranoia into high gear. Did he suspect them? Would he tell? Or was it something much more troubling...?

Yoko frowned, not wanting to go down that mental path again. He'd already wasted enough energy on that particular line of thought, and he didn't like where it had taken him any of the previous times. Glancing at Ryo again, he noticed a sheet of paper in his hand and immediately perked up. "Did we hear back from the agency?"

The question was enough to snap Ryo back from wherever he'd gone in his mental wanderings, though the uneasy glance he'd thrown to Koyama hadn't gone unnoticed. Yoko decided to ignore it for now. "Yeah, they just mailed them over. Looks like all three of the victims applied there." 

Yoko sighed, partly out of relief and partly out of the knowledge that their workload was about to increase exponentially. Sometimes he hated being right. "Alright, I guess--"

"But so did Watanabe."

" _What_?" That was the last thing Yoko expected to hear. His eyebrows creased, holding out his hand for the print out Nishikido was holding. Sure enough, at the bottom of the page in black, uncompromising ink were the characters for _Watanabe Yurika_. A name that had been burned into his mind along with the most horrific crime scene he'd witnessed in his entire career. Yoko swore loudly and crushed out his cigarette. "Guys, I hope you've stocked up on smokes, because this just got a whole hell of a lot more serious."

\--

“If this pans out it is one hell of a lead.” Ryo looked viciously pleased about it, dark and shining in his own way. The three of them having moved down to somewhere more suited to talking; the sky was threatening rain again.

The thought of that body, mutilated and torn as it was, being a young girl who had only wanted to become famous, made him feel a little light headed with his breath hitching in his throat. He could only imagine the scene in all grizzled techno-coloured detail with insides going all outside in a haze of blood pools and too much pink. In fact he did; later that night he’d woken horribly shaken, covered in oily panic sweat with screaming women still echoing in his dreams. All alone in his too-big bed. “That just can’t be right.” He said it softly, not really expecting to be heard.

“Hey.” Yoko reached for him at the same time Ryo did but he turned away from their hands, pacing down the empty hall, before spinning on his heels to face them.

“But that one was different. It can’t be related.” He said it with a little more conviction this time, because this was getting really fucked up. Ryo levelled him with a scowl, his face saying quiet clearly ‘are you an idiot?’ while his mouth was pressed in a tight line.

“Think Koyama, what was the C.O.D.?” He said a little tersely.

Koyama paused, for a moment back in the chilled autopsy room trying to piece Watanabe back together, cold flesh and organs rubbery under his fingers, a jigsaw puzzle with jagged edges, really.

“Unknown.” The tox came back clean too, nothing on her body that could help them find what had happened to her that night.

“But none of the others…” He made a vague hand gesture meant to convey ‘ripped to shreds.’

“Boyfriend’s alibi checked out, we know dick-all about the murderer. No witnesses, no one even _heard_ anything. ” Ryo sighed; the case had probably been riding them hard, no evidence and too much pressure from an unforgiving media. “This is our only lead right now.” 

“Doc, what do you know about serial killers?” He shook his head at Yoko’s question, leaning faintly against the wall. He’d known, but hadn’t really _known_. He’d seen the victims, listened to their voices and spoke with the families, but he had never really stopped to think about the person doing it, and he found that it scared him. How did Ryo and Yoko deal with this shit day in and day out? _Serial Killer_ \- the word seemed alien and untouchable but a series of girls who spoke no lies said differently. 

“Escalation.” Ryo cut in smoothly. “Usually the first one is an accident, or maybe there was a trigger. Either way the first victim is messy, unprepared. From there they will evolve.”

“The kills get more violent and usually start to come faster. Sometimes they just stop, only to start up again, but I don’t think that is how this is going to go. This guy is just getting started.” Yoko spoke, his voice tight and when Koyama looked at him he was smiling, a sharp shark’s smile. “Now we can catch this son of a bitch, just a little more time is all we need.”

“Back to Endlix. We need more information on the people who work there, criminal records, alibis. I think we need to talk to Matsumoto again; this should be enough for a warrant on their personnel files. If our perp is using this as a hunting ground he needs to be connected somehow.” Ryo’s grin matched Yoko’s. “We could haul them all in for questioning.”

“Wouldn’t that be fun?” 

Koyama wondered if he would meet another one of this guy’s friends on his table before they found him, uneasy despite their optimism.

“Koyama?” Ryo waved the page at him and he snapped back into the moment.

“Yeah?”

“You can leave this to us now.” He bit his bottom lip. Ryo was scowling at him, but he looked uncomfortable, like he wanted to say something more but decided against it at the last moment.

“You can’t do that.” Koyama frowned, just a little put out.

“Actually, this is police work, we’ve got a possible link to the Watanabe case now. It is profile, and we’ve got press all over this.” Yoko interjected and Koyama’s frown became more pronounced. That just wasn’t fair. Ganging up on him like that was totally against the rules.

“Look, you’ve been really helpful, and I can try and keep you in the loop when I have time.” Ryo gave him a weird look, like there was something else he wanted to talk about and Koyama’s stomach twisted. Detectives were sharp people - how much had he, well, detected?

“You do that.” He was angry, sad and nervous and he wasn’t really sure about either. “Good luck, okay?"

Once safe in his office, hiding behind his desk and really wishing that he had gone to the roof for a smoke break because it would calm his nerves, Koyama ran unsure hands through his hair. He should be happy about this; ecstatic, in fact, that they were making progress towards solving the case. The case was like watching a train wreck in slow motion, a bomb about to go off. That and girls were dropping like flies. Finding Yoko on the roof had just been a nice coincidence, and a bit of a dumb risk but that was just the kind of mood he was in lately. Scared that they were going to find out and this was all going to blow up in his face and not in any pleasant way.

Because, well, somewhere along the lines he’d come to need him, them. This weird little detective role-play (well for him anyways - this was rather old-hat to the other two) only highlighted what he should have known all along.

Four dead girls and an office romance.

“Koyama?” Yabu poked his head around the open door and looked at him with a hesitant smile. “I have the last set of death certificates to be signed and a bundle from the tox lab on last week’s cases for you to look at.”

“Put them on my desk.” He waved at the heaps of paper in his inbox.

“I got a request for a death certificate, but the person isn’t dead yet. What do you want me to do with that?” Koyama blinked a few times and took the paper from Yabu’s hand and shook his head in wonder; and people didn’t understand _him_. The request was for an official death certificate, but the person was still alive, in the hospital but not dead.

“That is just plain weird.”

“You’re telling me.” Yabu paused like he was debating to speak or not, finally he made a decision. “It is nice to see you smiling again; you’ve been acting kind of distracted lately. Is everything okay?”

“It’s fine.” Koyama waved the question away with a shake of his wrist. If anyone saw him now, would they ever believe he could be so miserable so dark and dreary? Well, no, Koyama was a happy person by nature and he was going to damn well stay that way, keep of the dead or not. He summoned the brightest smile he could to put his younger colleague at ease. He got a smile back, bright and happy.

With a lead and a direction, Yoko and Ryo would be off saving the day, too busy to call or get together probably. Soon enough he would be alone again anyways.

Gathering his scattered mind about him - he always got a little spacey when he didn’t get enough sleep - he opened up the department’s system for death certificates. He searched for unknown cause of death, females under the age of thirty in the past three years, broadening it to include all of the Tokyo records.

There was a whole list of them. He would need to go through the paper records manually to look at the photos too, the police kept all the others on their files. He didn’t want to be completely out of this yet. He may be kind of scared, but if Ryo could do it he could do it, and if Yoko could also do it then he could, too.

The game was afoot, Doctor Watson.

At some point he was sure he was supposed to go home, heard both Yabu and Hikaru leave. Smiles and excited chatter about what they had planned, for tomorrow was their day off the swing shift, Kitayama and Fujigaya to pick up the slack, and doctor Kato to cover his shift.

Feasibly, he could smuggle these records home, giving himself more time with all the files he had tracked down. He shifted over, the linoleum cold on his ass, making room for another filing cabinet to be opened, flicking through case numbers until he found the one he wanted. Adding it to his growing pile.

The stack was heavy and he was starting to get really hungry. Deciding to call it a day, he struggled the massive thicket of folders into his side bag, and the rest in a paper bag. It looked kind of conspicuously inconspicuous, a plain paper bag. The ride home was uneventful, his mind still flicking through names and details until his head swam.

When faced with the stack of papers, and the thought of looking through years worth of cold dead faces, Koyama decided to take a bath instead. He set the stack of folders down; he had tomorrow off anyways, no one was going to bother him for awhile. Nyanta jumped up on the stack causing it to shift over in a small landslide and he laughed, scratching the top of the cat’s head affectionately.

“You want to help me?”

Nyanta flicked his tail as if affronted that the papers would slide under him like that, looking at Koyama expectantly before moving over to his food bowl, stopping a few times to make sure that he was still following.

Okay, feed the cat and then a bath.

The water soothed muscles sore from hunching over and the constant low-grade anxiety that he’d been plagued with for what seemed like days now. ‘Don’t take it personally’ Ryo had told him when they first started this little investigation, but Koyama just didn’t know how. He wasn't a police officer, and sometimes he wondered if they even saw the victims, understood they were people, not just the criminal. He couldn't help but take it too personally. Steam filling the room and blocking out the rest of the world for awhile, settling in his lungs warm and moist comforting. His heart sped up a little when he thought about everything, the case, juggling his lovers, and how everything was balanced so precariously and it took a few calming breaths to remind himself that there was nothing for it but to wait.

Warm, wet and feeling the week of lack of sleep catching up to him, Koyama collapsed on his bed barely dry, the sharp coolness against skin raising goose-bumps along his arms and legs. He shifted against the blankets, melting against the cradle of his bed. Completely relaxed, his mind wandered going back to the roof before Ryo’d come, the way that Yoko had kissed him like he’d been starving. That kind of passion never failed to arouse him, fighting back just as hard, kissing like it was the end of the world, hands pulling and tugging and just so completely desperate. The thought settled warm and comfortable in his stomach making gooseflesh crawl down his arms and legs.

He was all languid and lax from the bath, heat pulsing slow and thick through his body, the faint currents over wet skin sensual and he moved against the bed just to feel it rubbing over his naked hips and shoulder.

Rolling on his back, Koyama let his legs spread a little, palming the soft skin of his stiffening cock, skin soft and papery against his fingertips. He could feel the slow pulse of arousal thrumming in his head, his heart, and the vein that ran along his dick.

Yoko’s mouth hard on his, hands tight along his back and holding him close, tongue pressing deep groans caught between their teeth, muffled by their lips and caught, held. He lifted his hand to lick his palm, catching the faint taste of soap from his shower and salt. He pushed into the warm tunnel of his fist.

In his mind it was Yoko’s hands pressing his hips against the bed, holding him in place as he took him deep in his mouth. Mouth made for it, full lips soft and agile tongue. Yoko’s skin flushed when he was aroused, light pink that Koyama could trace with his lips.

He came slowly, almost gently; holding himself through it as his back arched forward, a low moan escaping between his teeth. Much better. He cleaned up haphazardly, feeling even more loose and relaxed, curling against his pillow without bothering to get dressed.

In the morning he would go through the files and he _would_ find something.

\--

Ryo felt like death warmed over. His night had consisted of as much bad takeout as he could stomach (not much), as many beers as it took to get his mind to wind down (too many), and several hours of late night TV until he passed out on his couch, sleeping fitfully for a few hours and waking up in a cold sweat, images of girls sliced into bright red pieces still dancing behind his eyes. It was still dark out when he woke and made an executive decision to come into work early, knowing that he wouldn't be getting any more sleep and he might as well be getting something productive done instead of running mental circles in his apartment alone. The station had stacks of papers to read through, bright lights and at least the illusion that you weren't alone when other people were plugging away, finishing up the last reports of the night or goofing off in the break room. With the new break in their case and the possibility of a real, live serial killer on their hands it wasn't as if there would be any surplus of work, either. Ryo needed to be on his game.

The station also had coffee, another major point in its favor.

It was dreary out when Ryo left, the darkness promising light soon but not quite there yet, enough people on the street and the train to make him feel like he had company, but few enough that he still felt untouched by them. It was a strange sort of loneliness, alone in a sea of people, the kind of loneliness you got used to in big cities.

The station was a welcome sight when he got there, still caught in the usual early morning lull when Ryo arrived, the late shift winding down and most of the desks still empty, waiting on Ryo's co-workers to find their way into work for the day. It had the same half-empty feel that the trains had, but none of the loneliness. Here, at least, he had his place - a worn-down desk and a chipped coffee mug staking his claim in this world. It wasn't much, but it helped settle him a little.

He nodded at a few of the guys still rounding off their shifts as he passed them, glad for the relative quiet. It would be easier to get back into the head space he needed to be in to function enough to be a help on this case and not a hindrance.

The smell of coffee hit him as he approached his desk and he nearly groaned, the need for caffeine like an ache in the pit of his stomach. A cup of coffee and maybe a quick cigarette up on the roof and he might be able to function at half-capacity. The hour and a half or so of relative peace until the rest of the squad started trickling in would do the rest.

"Good morning, Sunshine."

"Yoko?" Ryo blinked at his partner, wondering for a second if he was actually tired enough to hallucinate. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm dedicated." Yoko grinned and reached for his cup of coffee.

Ryo gave him a suspicious look as he slipped off his suit jacket and slung it over the back of his chair. "Did you even go home last night?"

"For a few hours." Yoko shrugged and watched Ryo over the top of his mug. "What about you?"

"Same." Ryo shared a tight lipped smile as he snatched up his coffee mug and headed for the break room. Apparently he wasn't the only one that this case was getting to, if Yoko being at work (and actually at his desk and not off milling around, chatting up co-workers) was any indication. It made Ryo feel marginally better to know he wasn't alone here, even if he didn't particularly wish the issues he was having on anyone.

The coffee was actually fresh, a rarity that Ryo took advantage of, breathing in the smell of it as he filled his cup and carried it back to his desk. Yoko already had his nose buried in a folder when Ryo got back, his face screwed up in concentration, lips moving as he read through the details. Ryo watched him for a long moment and sipped his coffee, his face thoughtful. He'd had a nervous, nagging feeling in the pit of his stomach since the day before, the look on both Yoko and Koyama's faces when he'd interrupted their smoke break enough to make him uneasy. It seemed pretty idiotic, honestly, given that Yoko was, well... _Yoko_ and he couldn't quite wrap his mind around the idea of him making out with a very male co-worker on the roof, but he couldn't quite manage to shake it. It wasn't exactly something he could _ask_ about, though. Yoko would need a lot of explanation that Ryo really didn't want to give and Koyama - well, he didn't want to sound like a jealous boyfriend. 

Besides, with this case taking the turn it had they had much bigger things to worry about.

Ryo pushed the thoughts to the back of his mind and fired up his ancient computer, sipping at his coffee as he waited for it to boot up. It was still chugging along, fan whirring loudly as it worked through what seemed like a year's worth of updates, when Koyama walked up behind him and grasped his shoulder, leaning over him to lay a case folder on the empty space in the middle of Ryo's desk. Ryo jumped a little at the contact and sat up straight, leaning forward and slipping out from beneath the other man's hand in a move that he hoped wasn't too obvious. He threw a quick, nervous look at his partner across the desk as he opened the folder up, missing the brief frown that flitted across Koyama's face.

"What's this?"

"Something you need to see." Koyama took a step back and Ryo relaxed a little, covering it by shifting in his chair to get a better view of the file in front of him. It contained a death certificate signed and pictures of a girl, pretty in that same conventional sort of way that they'd seen in their other victims. Ryo frowned and shot a look at Yoko, hoping that this wasn't what he thought it was.

"Don't tell us you found another serial killer, Doc." 

"No." Koyama crossed his arms across his chest and rested his hip against the edge of Ryo's desk, his face tired and serious. "But I think I found another victim. Mizubata Ai, 22, C.O.D. unknown. She fits the profile so far."

"If she was connected to Endlix," Ryo murmured, eyeing the list of hopefuls' names the assistant at Endlix had sent over the day before. The name didn't ring any bells, but he hadn't exactly been looking for it. "She died in March of last year? That's almost eight months before any of the other girls."

Koyama nodded, looking slightly upset with himself. "I think that's why I missed her. She was so far back that I didn't put two and two together."

Yoko stood, moving around to stand beside Ryo, staring over him at the file. "I wouldn't beat myself up about it if I were you. Most people wouldn't have caught the other three."

"Yeah." Koyama frowned, not really looking satisfied with that answer. 

"Yoko's right. It's not your fault." Ryo sat back and ran a hand through his hair nervously, a bit too aware of just how close Koyama was standing. "How did you find her?"

"I crossed referenced the death certificates for the past three years for any that matched our M.O.--girls under the age of thirty with C.O.D unkown." 

Yoko whistled, giving Koyama an impressed look. "Are you sure you're not a cop?"

"Positive. I just play one in my free time." Koyama shrugged and smiled, the expression almost sad. "Will this help you guys catch this guy?"

"It could. Can't hurt, anyway." 

"Either way, good work." Yoko grinned and leaned against Ryo's desk, arms crossed over his chest and expression almost predatory. "We may just have to make you an honorary grunt yet."

"I think I'll keep my day job." Koyama laughed and pushed off the desk, throwing Ryo a quick look that had his heart fluttering oddly in his chest for long minutes afterwards. Things were definitely starting to get interesting.

\--

"So this is Endlix." Ryo glanced around, taking in the decor as discretely as possible. SHOCK really hadn't been much different - posh waiting area, hallways lined with pictures of smiling girls selling wholesome with just a hint of slutty. Ryo had a feeling that most, if not all, of the idol agencies around had this kind of safe, sterile feel. It was vaguely creepy.

"Yeah. Nice, isn't it?" Yoko was busy staring at the talent posters lining the hall as he lead the way to Matsumoto's office, having waved off the security guard and his offer to call for assistance with a flash of his badge. 

"Yeah. Great."

"What's the matter?"

Ryo shrugged and did his best to not to look too uncomfortable. "This place doesn't give you the creeps?"

"Are you kidding? It's full of hot girls." Yoko grinned at him as they passed a group of girls waiting outside of one of the offices, crouched over their makeup mirrors and chattering away at each other. How anyone could like it here - even if they found noisy, overly made up girls attractive - was beyond Ryo's understanding. It was like being stuck in a much larger, much more elaborate version of his sister's twelfth birthday party.

"But they're all so..." 

"That's the point." Yoko grinned and clapped him on the shoulder.

Ryo sighed. At least with the way Yoko kept eyeing the posters and girls they passed in the halls, it was fairly safe to say that any worries he had after finding Koyama and Yoko on the roof together were pure paranoia. Not that he'd been that worried. Or jealous. Even if Koyama's face had been suspiciously flushed and his lips kissed bruised. It had probably just been the wind.

"Ryo."

"What?" 

"You sure you're okay?" Yoko's brows were drawn together slightly, his lips pursed in that serious look that Ryo had only seen a few times before.

"Yeah. I'm fine." Ryo frowned slightly and forced himself to focus on the job.

"You're sure? This case isn't going to get any easier, you know."

"I know that. I'm not exactly new to the job, Yoko."

Yoko grabbed Ryo's arm and stopped them both, his face still far too serious. "I know you're a good cop, Ryo. You're a good partner. It's just--" Yoko paused to smile at a group of girls as they slipped out of one of the doorways lining the hall and walked past, giggling and smiling behind their hands. He waited until they were out of earshot to continue, voice low enough that Ryo was pretty sure someone would have to be standing between them to make out what he was saying. "This is bigger than anything we've had to deal with before. We have to have each other's backs on this one."

"I know. I've got your back, alright? You know I do." Ryo shook his arm out of Yoko's grasp and sighed. 

"Ryo, I mean it. We need to have our heads in the game for this one." Yoko cleared his throat. "I know that cops don't like getting all touchy feely, but if something's bothering you, you need to tell me about it."

"It's not the case." Ryo's frown softened and he shook his head slowly, contemplating for a split second just spilling everything. Coming out to your partner right before you went to question someone in what might possibly be the biggest case of your career wasn't really a wise move, though. 

"You're sure?"

"Yeah." Ryo forced a smile and shrugged. Yoko didn't quite look convinced but he turned and started down the hall again anyway. 

Things were quiet for a few steps before Ryo turned toward him. "I did mean it. I've got your back, Yoko." 

"And I've got yours." Ryo could see the grin that Yoko flashed him from the corner of his eye, the seriousness long gone from his face. "Now that our gay cop buddy moment is out of the way, can we go catch some bad guys?"

"You started it." Ryo rolled his eyes and followed the other the rest of the way down the hall.

\--

"You want records of _all_ of our employees?"

"Yes." Yoko smiled, the tight professional smile that meant he meant business. Ryo was used to seeing it when they were in the thick of things, questioning people and digging around for information, but now it looked even more strained than usual, tight around the edges. Yoko wanted to catch this bastard just as badly as he did. "And information on anyone outside who works with your agency on a temporary basis. Accountants, photographers, makeup artists, janitors - everyone."

Ryo carefully schooled his face, doing his best to look tough and imposing while Yoko took the lead with Matsumoto. He wasn't quite sure how he'd gotten the bad cop position this round, but he wasn't going to argue when Yoko was willing to do all the talking and he just had to stand there and look tough.

"You know you're asking a lot." 

"We found another girl." 

"She's--"

"Dead." Yoko nodded and Ryo watched as Matsumoto's eyes widened, a quick wash of emotions that Ryo didn't have time to place flitting across his face. "We know it's a lot to ask, Matsumoto-san, but it's necessary."

"No--it's fine." Matsumoto shook his head, his expression visibly strained. "I want to help. It may take some time, though."

Yoko nodded and threw Ryo a look out of the corner of his eye. "How long?"

"A week, at least. We have a lot of employees, and with the number of outside agencies we work with--"

"By Friday." Ryo spoke up finally, words sharp and clipped. 

"That's two days from now. I don't think you realize just how big our company is. We can't possibly pull the records on everyone by then."

"Then more girls will die." 

Matsumoto visibly paled, lips drawn into a thin line as he gave Ryo a cold look and then turned back to Yoko. "I'll do everything I can to help, but that's just not possible."

"Excuse my partner," Yoko did a good job looking embarrassed, but Ryo caught the quick glance the other threw him out of the corner of his eye. It was working. "He's a bit overzealous, but he's right. If we're going to catch whoever this is, we need those records as soon as possible."

"I can have our employee records to you by Friday morning. I might be able to get the others to you by Sunday." Matsumoto gave Ryo a look, as if challenging him to argue. Ryo met Yoko's eyes and nodded.

"Monday will be fine. Thank you for your cooperation."

"Just hurry up and catch him." Matsumoto gave a terse nod and pressed a button on his phone, casting Ryo another look as he leaned toward the speaker. "Tegoshi, the officers will be stopping by your desk on their way out. Make a note of everything they need."

Ryo allowed himself a tight lipped smile as they took their leave of Matsumoto and headed out the door. Yoko threw Ryo a look once they were out the door, speaking low under his breath. "You know you were almost scary in there."

"Almost?"

"Well, I know what a teddy bear you are underneath that scowl." Yoko grinned, leading him to a little desk just to the left of Matsumoto's office doors. 

The young man seated there looked up and gave them a smile that was as perfectly styled as his hair. Ryo put on his best blank face and tried not to stare. He'd never seen anyone quite that pretty in real life.

"Yokoyama-san."

"Just Yoko." Yoko grinned and leaned on the edge of the kid's desk in a way that was oddly familiar. "Nice to see you again, Tegoshi. This is my partner, Nishikido."

"Nishikido-san." Tegoshi smiled, the expression so well-practiced it was a little unnerving. He turned the smile on Yoko and reached for a pen. "What can I help you with?"

"We need records on every employee the company's had for the past two years. Including anyone outside that you might have contracted in."

"Everyone?" Tegoshi's smile faltered for a moment, the pen hovering above the paper as he gave Yoko a brief, troubled look. "You - do you think someone that works here has something to do with those girls' deaths?"

"That's what we're trying to find out." Ryo watched as Yoko put a hand on Tegoshi's shoulder, actually feeling a bit sorry for the kid. He'd dropped the smile and actually looked human now. "Don't worry, though. We'll catch whoever it is."

"I'll try to get this to you quickly." Tegoshi's smile was back, looking a little less practiced and more strained as he jotted a quick note on the pad in front of him, then leaned forward to pull a business card out of the holder on his desk. He turned it over, writing down a row of numbers in tiny, neat script before handing it over to Yoko. "In case you need anything. My cell phone number is on the back, if you have any questions after hours."

"Thanks. I really appreciate your help on this, Tegoshi." Yoko smiled the same smile he'd offered to the pretty girls they'd passed in the hallway and Ryo held in a sigh. Yoko seemed to have forgotten that even if Tegoshi was pretty feminine, he wasn't a girl - Ryo was 95% sure of this, at least. "Remember to keep an eye out for the forgettable girls, too."

"I will."

\--

Koyama eyed the bag of takeout on his coffee table, mouth twisted up in a confused smile. "Take out?"

"There's a place by the station." Ryo took a seat beside the other on the couch, just close enough that their thighs brushed as he leaned over to take the food out of the bag, lining the cartons up in a neat row along the edge of the table.

Koyama laughed and Ryo paused, turning his head to give the other a questioning look. "What?"

"Nothing." Koyama laughed again, shaking his head and smiling in a way that Ryo wasn't quite used to, all warmth and good humor with no edge of sex behind it. "I just... when you called to ask if I was hungry, I didn't think you actually meant, you know... _hungry_."

"Oh." Ryo blinked and bit at his bottom lip, feeling a bit like an idiot. He'd known, deep down, that this had been a bad idea. He didn't do dates and domesticity, and Koyama had never asked or even acted like he wanted anything like this from him. It had been a bad move on his part to assume. It had just been a really long few days, the majority of the office burying themselves in the case and crime scene photos, sad stories and images that Ryo was having a hard time getting out of his head. He'd thought maybe Koyama would like the distraction, too. He hadn't seemed quite his usual self after having to deal with what was left of Watanabe's body. "I can take this all home if you already ate. Or you could keep it in your fridge for later--" He reached for the first box of takeout and put it back into the bag.

"Ryo." Koyama touched his arm and leaned in, smiling that unfamiliar smile again. "It's okay. I really am hungry."

"Really?"

"Really." Koyama nodded and pressed his lips against Ryo's, lingering there, slow and warm but still familiar. Ryo pressed a hand to the back of the other's neck to hold him close, the kiss dragging onward, gentle but with that edge of need that was always there between them. They were just working their way into something a bit more than friendly, Ryo's fingers tangled up in Koyama's hair and the other's fingers toying with the buttons on Ryo's shirt, when Ryo heard movement and felt a sudden, warm weight across his legs that was most definitely not Koyama.

 

"What the--" Ryo pulled back, blinking down at the cat that was perched on his lap, staring up at him with a question in its yellow eyes.

"Looks like we've got company." Koyama chuckled as he sat back, scratching the cat behind the ears briefly and earning a light purr.

"Hey there... cat." Ryo gave the cat a pat on the head, a little put off by the sudden curiosity. He'd been over to Koyama's place dozens of times before and had seen his cat lurking on a few of those occassions, but it had never really had any interest in him before. Then again, he was kind of glad for that, given he was usually wearing a lot fewer clothes and... otherwise engaged.

Koyama laughed, pulling away completely and leaning over to open up the boxes of takeout. "Nyanta."

"What?"

"Not cat, Nyanta. His name is Nyanta." 

"Nyanta." Ryo reached out, scratching behind the cat's ears uncertainly. It started to purr softly, butting its head against his fingers and he smiled. "He's friendly."

"Only if he likes you." Koyama dug two sets of chopsticks out of the bag and opened one up, breaking them apart as he watched Ryo out of the corner of his eye. "Or if he thinks he can get something from you."

Ryo eyed the takeout containers. "He likes chicken, I take it?"

"Loves." Koyama chuckled and shooed the cat off of Ryo's lap with a gentle push before offering the other a set of chopsticks and a box of chicken in some sort of spicy mystery sauce. Ryo had no idea what exactly went into it, but sometimes ignorance really was bliss. It smelled delicious, at least. "Eat before he gets brave and tries to steal it from you."

Ryo nodded and, for once, did what he was told without argument. He settled back against the back of the couch and picked at the chicken in front of him, watching as Koyama folded his legs beneath him and did the same. He heard a soft chirping sound and looked around in confusion until he found Nyanta seated on the floor beside the couch, looking up at the both of them with patient, imploring eyes.

"Bad cat." Koyama laughed and picked a smaller piece of chicken out of his box, tossing it onto the floor and watching the cat gobble it up with a laugh. "Don't ask for any more."

"Hey. You said not to feed the cat."

"No, I said _you_ couldn't feed the cat." Koyama grinned and stretched his legs out across the couch, poking Ryo in the thigh with his toe. "I never said that I couldn't."

"That's not really fair."

"Yeah, well, my house, my rules."

Ryo pushed the other's foot away and tried to look put out - something that was hard to do when you couldn't help smiling like an idiot. Maybe coming here hadn't been such a bad idea afterall. He went back to eating his chicken, both of them ignoring the cat, who was still watching them and waiting, no doubt hoping for more charity in meat form. It was quiet, oddly normal, and felt better than Ryo wanted to really think about. If he didn't watch himself, this thing with Koyama was going to move into places that he really, really didn't know how to handle, if it wasn't there already.

"So, did you guys find anything else out about Ai?"

"Who?" Ryo blinked, startled out of his musings by Koyama's soft question. He looked at the other, watched as Koyama worried his bottom lip between his teeth.

"Mizubata Ai. The girl that I found that matched the profile. The first one."

"Oh." Ryo swallowed, made a face and sat the box of food aside, closing the lid to keep the cat out of it almost as an afterthought. "A little. You were right, she had ties with Endlix, just like the other girls - a few failed auditions but nothing that really stands out. No one really even remembered her."

"Poor girl." Koyama sighed, setting his half-empty container beside Ryo's and reaching for the cat, settling it into his lap and stroke its fur slowly, his face wearing that sad, thoughtful look that Ryo usually only saw when they were at work. The cat seemed a little put-out that Koyama wasn't offering him more food but it settled against him anyway, purring and nipping at his fingers. "They all just forgot about her like she'd never even existed. Maybe they never even paid attention to her in the first place. It would be awful, to just be forgotten like that, like you never existed at all."

"You didn't forget about her," Ryo reminded him, sliding across the couch and reaching out to run a hand through Koyama's hair. He always felt awkward trying to comfort people, but Koyama was smiling at him and there was no one else to see, so he leaned over to cover Koyama's lips with his own, intent on wiping away the other's sadness. Koyama didn't seem opposed to the idea, his lips answering Ryo's almost instantly, the hunger from earlier back and stronger than before. He felt Koyama's hands gripping the front of his shirt, tangling with his tie and pulling him closer. He was vaguely aware of Nyanta making an indignant sound as he moved out of the way, leaving room for Ryo to move in closer, pratically straddling Koyama's lap and leaving them pressed chest to chest. 

It didn't take long for the gentler press of lips to give way to rough, desperate kisses, the hot, slick slide of a tongue in his mouth and the rough scrape of teeth as Koyama worried his bottom lip. Ryo pressed Koyama back against the arm of the couch and things moved almost naturally from there, Koyama's hands finding their way up the back of his shirt as Ryo tugged at the other's hair and ran teeth down his throat, arching as Koyama's nails scraped against his back in retaliation. They were caught somewhere between fighting and fucking when Koyama managed to slide out from under him, leaving Ryo just enough time to make a soft protest before he tangled his hand up in Ryo's tie and tugged, forcing the other off the couch and guiding him to his bedroom with a familiar light in his eyes and his lips quirked into a smile that never failed to make Ryo's knees weak with need.

The next part was familiar and easy like falling off a bike, all lips and tongue and warm, bare skin, limbs tangled together and sweat running down the small of his back while Koyama arched beneath him. When it was over and they were lying side by side, sweaty and breathless and sated, the taste of Koyama thick on his tongue, Ryo couldn't help but lick his lips and smile lazily at the other.

Koyama seemed to take it as an invitation and slid across the sheets, throwing a leg over Ryo's and an arm around his waist as he leaned in to share a lazy kiss. He stayed there afterwards, cheek pressed against Ryo's shoulder and body wrapped around his, the room quiet except for the sound of their breathing. Usually by this point Ryo was up and dressed or they were halfway into another round, but he actually liked this, just laying here like this. If he closed his eyes he could almost pretend that they were a real couple.

Ryo felt the change in Koyama's breathing and looked down to find the other dozing against him, face slack and peaceful in his sleep. He reached up and brushed sweaty hair out of his eyes, wondering what would happen if he just stayed here like this. Koyama might not wake up for hours, maybe not even until morning, and Ryo could just pretend like he'd fallen asleep, too, and avoid the whole issue of actually asking to stay over. He laid there for a long moment, turning the possibilities over in his head, excuses he could make and lies he could tell to make it seem like a fluke and not like something he wanted. He could avoid all of the questions that way, keep things the way they'd been.

In the end his uneasiness won out and he ended up pulling away, careful not to wake Koyama as he told himself that he was doing the right thing. Koyama didn't want anything that was more than casual and he wouldn't mess things up by pressing for more. He'd rather they stayed like this than were ruined by him being stupid and insisting on more.

He pulled on his clothes as quickly and quietly as he could manage, a little bothered by just how easily he could navigate Koyama's dimly lit bedroom. He'd just finished zipping up his pants, dressing as he snuck toward the bedroom door, when he heard a soft rustle of sheets behind him and a sleepy voice.

"Ryo?"

He paused in the doorway, turning to throw Koyama a nervous smile. "I didn't want to wake you."

"It's okay." Koyama rubbed at his eyes, smiling tiredly as he sat up, his ruffled hair and sleepy eyes making Ryo wish that he'd gone with his first plan and pretended to fall asleep so he could stay the night. "Going home?"

"Yeah. Work early tomorrow. We're starting our questioning of the Endlix employees."

"Busy day." Koyama gave Ryo a look and opened his mouth then closed it, like he'd wanted to say something and changed his mind at the last moment. He covered it with a smile and ran a hand through his hair, yawning softly. "Maybe I'll see you at the office."

"Maybe." Ryo returned the other's smile, hovering awkwardly in the doorway, one foot in the bedroom and one in the hall. "Get some sleep, okay?"

"I will."

"Uh... sweet dreams," Ryo mumbled, giving Koyama a look before he slipped out into the hall, nearly tripping over his feet in his haste. Well, that was smooth. He sighed as he stopped in the doorway to slip on his shoes, half-relieved to be going home despite the desire to turn around and climb back into bed with Koyama. At least at home there was no one else around to see it when he made an ass of himself.

He was out the door and halfway to the stairwell when he felt a hand on his arm and jumped, turning sharply to see Koyama still bed rumpled and obviously hastily dressed in a pair of old sweatpants and a holey t-shirt, smiling up at him. "I forgot to thank you for dinner."

Ryo blinked, nodding as if that was a perfectly valid reason for Koyama to chase him down in his hallway in the middle of the night. "You're welcome."

Koyama laughed, tugging on Ryo's wrist to pull him closer. "I was thinking you shouldn't drive on a full stomach."

"What?" Ryo stumbled a little as he moved in closer, his free hand sliding up to rest against the small of Koyama's back on reflex. 

"You shouldn't drive on a full stomach," Koyama repeated, stepping in so they were pressing chest to chest. "You should probably stay here tonight. You know, to be safe."

Ryo's eyebrows climbed nearly to his hairline as he stared at the other, trying to figure out whether or not he was being serious. A full minute of awkward silence later and he still hadn't found any sign that Koyama was being anything but sincere. He cleared his throat and tried for nonchalance. "Sure. To be safe."

Koyama grinned at him then and crushed their lips together, kissing him long and hard enough that it effectively silenced any protests or objections that his brain wanted to make. By the time they were done they ended up pressed against the hallway wall somehow, flushed and breathless and grinning at each other as they pulled apart. Ryo didn't even think to care that they'd been groping each other in the middle of Koyama's hallway where anyone could have seen them until Koyama's alarm went off the next morning.

\--

Yoko knew he should be angrier. He should be screaming and kicking and throwing a fit that would embarrass even the most spoiled of three year olds. It wouldn't be out of place - some might even say it was expected in this situation - and yet he couldn't summon the rage he knew he should be displaying. Sure, he was angry, but it paled under the all encompassing shadow of betrayal that had overtaken him, self doubt and jealousy skipping behind it like mad children following the piper.

The situation felt like some great cosmic joke at his expense. He had finally mustered the courage to stop by Koyama's place of his own accord, only to find the object of his desire kissing another man. Not just any man, either, but his partner; someone he trusted with his life. Two people he never thought would do something like this behind his back.

Yoko had ducked back into the stairwell, not wanting to be seen. Not that he thought they _could_ see him with the way they were kissing. He pressed the palms of his hands to his eyes, willing the image to leave him and wishing his sense of paranoia would shut up about how it had been right all along. Anyone would get tired of a lover who was so lacking in confidence. Who had he been trying to kid?

He didn't remember how long he stood there before going home with his tail between his legs and drinking to the point of stupidity. It was entirely counter-productive, he knew that, but alcohol-induced ignorance was preferable to wallowing in his own self-doubt. Even if it had resulted in him waking up almost an hour late to work the next morning and with a hangover the size of Hokkaido. At least the alcohol had shielded him from the fitful, nightmare-ridden sleep he'd been getting as of late. 

There were a couple missed calls from Ryo on his cell phone when he checked. Yoko deleted the corresponding messages without listening.

He paused long enough to down some pain killers before running out the door, still in the same rumpled, slept-in clothes from the previous day. Not for the first time, Yoko was glad he had the foresight to keep a spare suit in his locker at the station. He hadn't touched the clothes in months, but musty was preferable to the stench of alcohol and regret.

By the time he finally made it up to the bullpen, he was already an hour and a half late, his headache showed no signs of letting up, and his phone was buzzing with four new messages. He hadn't missed the relieved look on Ryo's face when he finally made it to their joined desks, and only shrugged and dodged his questions, feeding him the partial truth about having a rough night and a headache and leaving it at that. Ryo looked as if he was still concerned, but all it took was one stony look from Yoko and Nishikido backed down, respecting Yoko's desire to be left alone. Yoko always had liked that about Ryo, even if he wasn't exactly bouncing with affection for the other man at the moment.

The car ride to Endlix had been painfully silent. Usually they squabbled over who got driving rights, Ryo winning most of the time due to the fact that he was a hellish backseat driver. This time, however, Yoko didn't hesitate in handing the keys to Ryo, climbing into the passenger's seat and losing himself in the paperwork he'd brought with him. He thought he caught Ryo throwing him worried glances but he pointedly ignored them, reminding Ryo to keep his eyes on the road any time his partner seemed to become too preoccupied with Yoko's lack of chatter. The last thing they needed was to get in a fender bender due to Ryo being distracted by Yoko's moodiness. Explaining that situation to the chief would involve a whole slew of questions he'd rather not answer.

Once at the agency, Yoko threw himself into his work, digging for information like a man possessed. He interviewed employee after employee, everyone from janitors to executives. Anything to keep him from having to spend time alone with Ryo. Between his now head-splitting migraine and the growing urge to punch Ryo straight in his big, fat nose, Yoko figured the less he was around his partner, the better. He highly doubted their killer was going to wait for them to slug out their problems before taking out another innocent girl. Any and all brawls could wait until after they caught the sick son of a bitch.

Yoko had finally managed to rein in his mood from Doom and Gloom to Only Moderately Angry at the World by the time the lunch hour rolled around. His head was still throbbing, but having something to focus all of his energy on kept him from lashing out at the slightest of annoyances. 

So of course that would be when Ryo cornered him with an offer of lunch, his treat. Yoko hesitated, unsure if he could handle the inevitable conversation he knew would happen should he go. Though he did need to confer with Ryo over the case to see if he'd come up with anything. In the end, his stomach decided for him with a loud grumble straight out of a cartoon. Yoko sighed. _Traitor._ "I'll get my coat."

The restaurant Ryo dragged him to was small and homey, tucked away in a back alley a few streets down from Endlix. The tables were coated in vinyl and the walls looked like they hadn't seen the business end of a duster since the last great economic crash, but the food was cheap and the beer was cold. Neither of them minded slumming it a little if it meant a stomach full of good food for a decent price.

They were ushered to a seat near a dingy window, Ryo ordering two beers and two house specials for them, and set forth comparing notes until their food arrived. For all their inquiries, it seemed neither one had made much headway when it came to leads. Yoko could feel his headache growing. Patience. They needed to be patient. Even if their killer seemed to be anything but at the moment. Damn, what he would do for a whole handful of aspiring right right now. 

Much to Yoko's delight, the waitress came back with their food just as they reached a lull in the conversation. He could tell that Ryo was antsy, more than likely mentally preparing for the questions Yoko was hoping he wouldn't ask. Anything that distracted his from this task was a godsend.

True to form, Yoko was barely into his third mouthful of ramen when he heard Ryo speak. His words seemed nervous despite the obvious tone of nonchalance he tried to deliver them in. Care haphazardly hidden behind the venomous workings of a sharp tongue; typical Ryo. "You're quiet for once."

Yoko shrugged, picking at his noodles and staring at everything that wasn't Ryo. His appetite had packed up and left the moment Ryo had started talking. "Aren't you always saying that I'm too loud?"

"And that's why I'm worried." He heard Ryo sigh and place his chopsticks down. "Weren't you the one who said we have to have each other's back in this?"

 _That was before I knew you were fucking around behind my back._ Yoko cringed. Way to sound like a jilted lover. But then, wasn't he one? 

For the first time since sitting down, Yoko glanced at Ryo over the rim of his beer mug. He wondered how much Ryo knew of his relationship with Koyama, if anything at all. Yoko hadn't exactly broadcasted who he was sleeping with, and it didn't seem like Koyama was forthcoming with who warmed his sheets, either. Maybe Koyama was playing them both for fools, like a couple of cheap fiddles. Somehow that idea was infinitely more depressing. What a perfectly miserable couple of idiots they made. 

Digging his wallet out from his pocket, Yoko stood up and tossed a couple bills out onto the table, disregarding the way Ryo tried to object at not being able to pay for them both. It didn't feel right to make Ryo pay for food he had barely touched, and he wasn't much in the mood for charity at the moment. "I'll just be a lot happier when all of this is over with."

He meant more than the case, of course, but Ryo didn't need to know that.

"Will you tell me what the hell's eating you then?" Ryo was attempting to glare at him, though it came off more hurt than angry. Poor bastard probably had no clue after all. They probably _would_ have to talk about it at some point, the hulking elephant in the room that he desperately wished wasn't there, but now was neither the time nor the place. Not when they had some psychopath roaming the halls of Endlix, culling the herd.

With a crooked half-smile, Yoko gave Ryo a pat on the shoulder as he passed by him. "Yeah, maybe I will."

\--

"You probably never come to places like this, huh?"

Tegoshi smiled, the one that meant he felt uncomfortable with or embarrassed by whatever Yoko had said but was too polite to call him on it. He slid into the other side of the booth, waving off the waitress when she came by to ask him for a drink order. "My job usually takes me to clubs instead of pubs."

He never expected to be in this situation, sitting down to drinks with Tegoshi of all people. When he went to interview the young man earlier, Tegoshi had evaded most of his questions, hinting at not being entirely comfortable talking at the agency. It was Yoko who suggested the change of venues, inviting Tegoshi to meet him after work at the little bar near Yoko's apartment. Not exactly the most conducive of locations to interview a person at, but the staff knew him there and always gave him the booth furthest away from prying eyes and ears. He'd done some of his best police work in that secluded little booth. Besides, it sure as hell beat sitting at home moping or trying to avoid Ryo and Koyama at the station. 

Yoko took a swig from his beer, the second one he had ordered thus far. When he placed the bottle back down, he noticed Tegoshi looking at him with a strange mix of concern and curiosity. "Are you feeling all right? You seem sort of down."

Great, even the kid noticed. Yoko sighed and shook his head. Even if he had enough of a lapse in conscience to tell Tegoshi about his romantic woes, he wasn't sure where to start, or if he even wanted to say any of it aloud. As if ignoring it would make it all go away. "Nothing you need to be concerned about."

"If you need someone..." Tegoshi seemed to hesitate for a moment before leaning forward, placing both hands over one of Yoko's and staring up at him through his lashes. "This doesn't have to be strictly a business call."

Yoko blinked, staring down at the nicely manicured hands resting over his own. Had Tegoshi just hit on him? One look at the serious expression on the other man's face was all it took for Yoko to burst into laughter. It felt nice to be desired, especially when it was by someone he viewed as very attractive and right after finding out he was being cheated on, but as pretty as he was, Yoko had no intention of starting a relationship with Tegoshi. "Kid, I appreciate it, but you are, like, one hundred years too young for me."

Tegoshi pulled his hands back, frowning when Yoko showed no signs of stopping his giggling. "I'll be twenty-three in November."

"Trust me," Yoko laughed, trying to wipe the smile from his face, "you're still a child. Try again when you're pushing thirty." 

The frown on Tegoshi's face morphed into a pout, and Yoko had to make a concerted effort not to smirk. So Tegoshi had finally ditched the overly polite act, had he? That was good. The less composed a person was, the easier to get information out of them. 

Yoko leaned forward in his seat, a conspiratorial smirk on his lips. Time to get down to business. "You've still got your whole life ahead of you to find someone. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for the victims in this case." Images of Watanabe's mangled corpse flashed through his mind, still as grisly as the day he'd first seen them. Yoko didn't want any more girls ending up like that. "What was it that you couldn't tell me back at the office?"

Tegoshi's expression sobered instantly. Yoko could almost see him restraining his emotions back into the mask of vague pleasantness that seemed to be the norm for him. He wouldn't give him the opportunity. "You can trust me. Anything you say here stays between you and me. Nobody will know it was you."

"It's..." Tegoshi stalled, clearly weighing his words before speaking. "It's Matsumoto. Every time the president leaves town, he becomes so edgy." 

"Edgy how?"

"He snaps at us a lot, calls us idiots." Tegoshi ran his finger along the rim of Yoko's abandoned water glass, eyebrows creasing in thought. "I know his job is stressful but sometimes he gets this cold look in his eye like... like it'd be better if you weren't around."

Yoko had to keep his lips from curling up into an excited grin at this information. A good lead was like getting a birthday present, a raise, and a blow job all at once. After the day he'd had, he could use all three. "So he has a temper?'

"Mm." Tegoshi nodded. Yoko started to tap his fingers against the table. He could almost taste the birthday cake. 

"A violent one?"

Tegoshi bit down on his bottom lip as if he was trying to physically keep his mouth from revealing any more. His eyes, however, had already spilt everything as far as Yoko was concerned. _Happy birthday, Kimitaka..._

Making sure not to disturb any of the drinks on the table, Yoko reached over and tousled Tegoshi's perfectly styled hair. "Don't worry, kid, we'll protect you."

Tegoshi made a strangled sound, like he'd wanted to yelp and only caught it halfway through, hands flying up to fix the damage Yoko had just done. His lips twitched up into a strained smile as if he didn't entirely believe what Yoko said. The unmistakable wary expression of an informant. 

Yoko smiled, feeling better than he had all day. He made a mental note to have extra attention paid to Matsumoto. "Anything else you can think of?"

"No, that's it."

"Well, while we've got the table," Yoko smiled, beckoning the waitress over with a wave of the hand, "why don't you tell me more about what it is you people do? Special attention to the girls and their cup sizes would be especially appreciated."

\--

By the time they decided to call it a night, Yoko had gone through a couple more beers and had one foot firmly planted out of the land of sobriety with the other one threatening to follow soon after. Tegoshi tried to invite him somewhere else - Yoko couldn't recall if it had been his place or another bar, just that it involved more drinking - but Yoko had turned him down. He was likable, a little awkward under all his reservations and pretty like a doll, but this was one relationship Yoko was going to keep professional only. Look what had happened to the last time he'd let things go beyond that point. With a smile, a thank you, and a pat on the back hard enough to send Tegoshi stumbling forward a few steps, Yoko wandered off into the night alone.

He'd meant to walk straight home. Peel off his dirty suit, take his first shower in two days, and sleep like the dead. A good plan to cap off the rollercoaster of a day he'd lived through. What ended up happening, however, was more brooding on the broken state of his love-life, eventually culminating in him staring up at the front of Koyama's apartment building. 

He knew he shouldn't be there, but the more he thought on this whole fucked up situation, the more miserable he realized he was. He needed all his energy devoted to their case, not wasted on who was or wasn't fucking who. Worrying about his relationship with Koyama was taking up too much of his time. Precious time that he should be using to keep more girls from winding up chopped up like a piece of meat. They couldn't afford for him to be this distracted. 

The only reasonable solution was to cut out the source of all this unneccessary angst. He was sober enough to realize what the problem was and drunk enough to actually act on it, so what better time than now? 

Yoko made a grim face as he took to the stairs, his heart beating loud in his ears, a drumming that only increased in intensity with every step he took. Barely two thirds of the way to his destination and the noise had swelled to such a cacophony that he was sure it would drive him mad before he even reached Koyama's door. Who was to say he wasn't already insane for getting himself in a situation like this? Loneliness was a horrible bitch of a mistress. 

Yoko couldn't remember Koyama's door ever looking as imposing as it did when he finally approached it. He would call it all off, whatever 'it' was in terms of relationships. _A mess,_ he thought bitterly. It was a giant mess. Yoko would say his piece and they would go back to the way it was before, when they were just co-workers, casual acquaintances. Simpler times when they didn't have to sneak heated kisses while no one was looking and Yoko didn't yearn for the feel of Koyama's body against his own in the middle of the night.

Sucking in a shaky breath, Yoko rapped on the door loudly. And then again after a minute had passed with no answer. By the third time he was starting to get angry, though whether it was at Koyama for not answering or at himself standing there knocking like a fool, he wasn't entirely sure. All he knew was that his courage was fading fast and he wanted to get this damn ordeal over with so he could go home and move on with his life.

He started to raise his fist for a fourth time when the door was yanked open, revealing the person he least expected or wanted to see standing on the other side. Ryo looked angry, though his anger was quick to morph into confusion and something that might have been panic. Yoko was too distracted by the fact that Ryo was obviously half-naked to pay much attention to his subtle facial tics.

"Yoko?"

Yoko couldn't help the quick burst of nervous laughter that bubbled up in the back of his throat. Well, wasn't this just fucking perfect? The 'other man' in the flesh. In a way, it made everything easier for him. Less time to explain his reasons; less time for Koyama to try and convince him to change his mind.

"I'm not going to take up much of your time. I just came to tell Koyama something. I assume he's skulking around here somewhere?" 

Ryo stepped back into the apartment, closing the door behind, but not before giving Yoko a strange look. Honestly, Yoko didn't really give a shit what Ryo was thinking. He was of secondary concern at this point, a bystander in this battle Yoko was intent on waging. As long as he stayed out of the line of fire, he didn't have to worry about getting hurt.

When the door opened a second time, it was Koyama who greeted him, looking just as undressed and guilty as Ryo had been, though nowhere as surprised. More resigned, really. Getting caught in a lie like this couldn't have felt very good. "Yoko."

"Hey. Listen, about that thing, you know..." Yoko smiled weakly, hoping he wouldn't have to elaborate when Ryo was hovering over them like an angry mother bird. Thankfully, Koyama had always been pretty quick on the uptake. "Let's call it off."

Koyama opened his mouth to speak but Yoko was quick to cut him off. "I mean, you don't need it any more, do you?"

Koyama's expression seemed to crumple, all the color draining from his face. Yoko willed himself not to look at it past the initial glance. Instead he turned to Ryo, giving him a tight, forced smile. "And that's all I came to say. Don't stay up too late doing..." Yoko held up his arms and rotated his hands in the air. He tried to hold back the bitterness in his words but couldn't help the sneer he felt marring his lips. " _Whatever_. Goodbye." 

And with that, Yoko turned tail and ran like a coward.

He had nearly reached the stairwell when he heard the sound of bare feet against concrete behind him, slender fingers coming to wrap around his wrist and Koyama's voice pleading in his ears. "Yoko, wait!"

"No!" Yoko shouted, turning sharply on his heels and breaking free from Koyama's grip. The emotions were running raw across his face, a fresh wound that was too painful to cover up. He didn't care. "Just... no, okay? No more. I can't handle this."

His curiosity got the best of him and he flicked his eyes up to Koyama's face again, a decision he regretted almost instantly. Yoko had never wanted to see the other man looking so incredibly hurt, especially when it was his own fault. But wasn't it Koyama's fault, too? Wasn't his anger justified? If so, why did he feel like the one that had just killed Koyama's cat?

Yoko turned again, stumbling toward the stairwell before the urge to take back his words overcame him. He thought he heard someone cry his name, but couldn't make out who over the roar of blood in his ears. He'd summoned his courage, said what he came to say, and now it was time to run home to lick his wounds.

Much like the rest of this midnight detour, Yoko's escape plan didn't go nearly as smooth as he'd planned. But then, that would involve actually having a plan that was more concrete than 'get the hell out as quickly as possible.' He was on the second to last flight of stairs when he heard the hurried patter of feet over his head, a gruff shout joining the racket above. "Oi, Yoko!"

Yoko frowned and picked up his pace. Ryo just did not know when to leave well enough alone, did he? 

Even with his head start, Yoko hadn't made it to the parking lot when he felt a hand wrap around his upper arm. Ryo planted his feet and tugged backwards, knocking Yoko temporarily off balance. "Yoko, _stop_!"

"Leave me alone, Ryo, I'm fine!" He tried to shake Ryo off like he'd done with Koyama earlier, but Nishikido seemed much more intent on keeping him hostage. Yoko tried not to dwell on the implications of that thought.

"No, you're not. Now sit the fuck down and wait while I call you a cab."

Yoko let out an exhausted whine. Sobriety was creeping back up on him, and with it the clarity to know that this was not something he wanted to deal with now. Still, he did what he was told, plopping down on the curb and drawing his knees up to his chest. A cab would get him home quicker. "Fine, whatever. You're paying."

"Yeah, I am," Ryo groused as he pressed the phone to his ear. Let Ryo be pissy, that made two of them. Misery loved company, after all. Yoko glanced up at Ryo briefly. At least he had put on a shirt before leaving the apartment. That was decent of him.

Having finished giving the cab company the directions to their location, Ryo sat down next to him. Yoko found himself wishing he hadn't. Sitting meant he planned on being there for a while, which probably meant...

"Listen, about Koyama and me--"

Yoko groaned. Being right was only fun when it didn't involve getting a lecture as a reward. "Ryo, I _really_ don't want to talk about this right now." Or ever, to be honest. "So do me a favor and drop it." 

"You're not going to tell anyone, are you?" 

Oh, that was a laugh. Yoko bit back a smirk. "Believe me, I'm much better at keeping secrets than you know."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing. Nothing." Yoko sighed, running a hand along the back of his head until his face was nestled in the crook of his arm. The will to fight had drained out of him much more quickly than he'd anticipated. Then again, he also hadn't expected Ryo to be hanging around when he showed up. Make that two things Nishikido had inadvertantly ruined for him in the past week. "Just... go back upstairs, please."

"You're gonna wait for the cab, right?" Ryo could be a real stubborn bastard when he wanted to. It was a good trait for a detective to have normally, but all it seemed like at the moment was a giant pain in the ass to Yoko. 

"Yes, I am going to wait for the fucking cab, okay? _God damn._ Now will you please leave me alone?"

Glancing out of the corner of his eye revealed Ryo frowning at him, eyes too soft for Yoko's liking. Great, now he was being pitied, too. "Are you sure you're okay?"

"Peachy," Yoko muttered, flashing a peace sign as if that solved everything.

A heavy silence fell over the two of them, Ryo seemingly unsure of what to say and Yoko hoping he wouldn't bother. After what seemed like the longest five minutes of Yoko's natural life, Ryo stood up, scratching his arm awkwardly. "I don't know what's eating you, but whatever it is, we're still partners. I wasn't lying when I said I have your back."

Yoko winced, squeezing his eyes tight. He was being a selfish dick about the issue and he knew it. Ryo showed no signs of knowing that Koyama had been seeing the both of them simultaneously; taking it out on him was unfair. All the same, Yoko couldn't bring himself to forgive Ryo for the crime he had unknowingly committed, not when the wound was still throbbing. Rationality was better saved for those calm enough to use it. "Yeah, I know. Thanks."

"It's nothing. Get some sleep. We've got another long day tomorrow."

Yoko just grunted, lifting up a hand to wave at Ryo over his shoulder. Only after the sound of Ryo's footsteps had long faded did Yoko bother to uncurl himself, stretching out his legs before him and staring up at the night sky as he dug through his coat for his smokes. Ryo was right; they had another day full of investigating ahead of them. Now that he'd cut the romantic ties holding him back he could invest all of his energy in bringing their serial killer to justice. Yoko was free from all the bullshit, unfettered. So why didn't he _feel_ any better?

His fingers were shaking as he tried to light his cigarette, the flint wheel turning with an angry _chak-chak-chak_ , all sparks and no flame. Four misfires was all he could deal with before he snapped and threw the lighter hard against the ground. The device smashed into pieces with a satisying crack, shards of black plastic and a quickly evaporating splash of lighter fluid the only evidence that it had ever existed. Yoko grabbed the unlit cigarette from his mouth, twisting it angrily between his fingers and chucking the mangled paper and tabacco to join the remnants of his lighter. 

Yoko exhaled loudly, his hands going up to cradle his face. This was all for the best. He'd done the right thing. Maybe if he kept telling himself that, he'd actually start believing it.

\--

The cops were sniffing around, but he'd killed so many already (faces blending in his mind) and they were still so clueless. They were no match for him, too slow, stuck on things while he had already moved on, plain and simple too stupid. There was no way in hell they were going to be able to link anything to him; he had watched enough tv to know not to leave behind evidence. He was a cut above, not on par with the common criminal.

That and he was just smarter than them. His mother hadn't raised him to be dumb. His stomach twisted a little at that, a flutter in his belly and he scowled. For a moment there the fantasy slipped and he doubted, doubted himself. Then he looked at the dead girl, and felt a surge of anger, too hot, his face burning with it. This was supposed to _help_. It made him feel so good, and he was helping them, then why, why, why did it need to hurt sometimes too? The moment passed with his heart slowing and his thoughts becoming more lucid. The anger faded like it had never been there, smoothing out the wrinkles in his mind. Mommy-dearest could always do that to him, one sick and twisted cliché.

The lighting in here was horrible; no wonder she had thought that hair colour was a good one, you could barely see in here. Out in the light her hair looked flat and utterly two dimensional, but he could fix it. The last one hadn't been very good, his hands clumsy and slow. The results were paltry and he needed it to be perfect.

“I can do it this time.” He assured her corpse, giving an utterly fake smile, trying to be reassuring.

When she had stopped moving and he had pulled the pillow away there hadn't been that moment of eureka, slow satisfaction of a job well done. Unsatisfying. Still so very ugly, why was she so ugly when she had such potential? It wasn't fair and it wasn't right, somewhere out there karma was gnashing its great teeth and chomping at the bit to strike her down. Her face wasn't very nice, but she had nice even breasts and a nice figure, but she had made herself so cheap, no glam and no class. A thrill of anticipation; she was a blank slate now, devoid of meaning and ready to be filled, to be fixed and made beautiful the way that girls were supposed to be.

The first thing he did was take his knife and grab a chunk of hair, hacking through it easily and it came away in great clumps, sticking between his fingers and clinging to the linen, unhealthy from too much dye and lank as he let it fall to the floor. It was wrong, so wrong, she wasn't beautiful that way and he would need to make her beautiful. Once her hair was mostly on the floor, he smiled humourlessly to himself. See? Better already.

After that he hit a sort of groove, a headspace where the knife did most of the thinking and he followed it raptly, marvelling at its abilities. It knew before he did which way to cut to reveal the hidden beauty of the body, a mind of its own, sharp as a razor. He cut away the unwanted parts, like trimming the bad branches off a tree. The yellow bits, the broken bits, all of it came away cleanly, leaving behind something that was a little more zen. There were some longer bits of hair left on the other side, uneven, ugly. He twisted her head, pulling and tugging it into place when it didn't go easily enough.

This wasn't easy to do. Her neck wouldn't bend enough and the strands of hair stuck to the nitrile of his gloves, he had to partially roll her whole body to reach the parts he needed to see. He shook his hand and the tiny hairs fell the floor, adding to the rest of the mess on the carpet. Now it was even and something unloosened in his chest, pride and amusement flowing in equal parts. He caught himself humming some mindless pop tune from the radio and actually gave a delighted little laugh; he hardly ever _really_ laughed these days. At first it had been a little rough, his thoughts too focused on the outside world, those police, and all the girls who paraded around like they were something big (so much to do and so little time). He'd forgotten to focus, to listen to the excited thrum of his heart and the faint sound that tearing skin made. It was a subtle sound, with a strange resonation, the insides warm as he wiggled his fingers into the slit he made so he could pull and hear it again. Spray-tan skin irritated him so.

The face was most important - pretty girls needed to have full lips and long eyelashes, designed eyebrows and a slim jaw line, and so he would save it for last. Like dessert, something to look forward too, whipped cream and strawberries.

Her elbows were pretty, he thought a little distractedly, knife already making smooth parallel lines down the soft underside, the skin here was paper thin, showing the trace-work of veins that lay just under the skin. He followed some of them down, digging in his fingertips in just to know what one felt like, rubbery and elastic, too hot inside. Curiosity sated, he made his way first down to the right hand and then the left. Off came the fingertips at the first knuckle, he needed to get a different knife from her kitchen to do so, the joint being more stubborn than the last one had been. Now her offensive manicure was no more. Hair and nails, the second and third most important things that girls cared about and she was getting there.

"How about a pedicure sweetie?" She didn't answer, but it might have well been a yes.

His toe-nails were a pale pearly pink, soft and pretty, nothing at all like the hooker-red that this girl wore. That just wouldn't do. He straddled her legs so he could get to work. This was probably going to take him the rest of the night to wrap up. There was just so much to do. No one would be looking for trash like this and so long as he was done at a good time no one would be the wiser.

When he was done she glistened and glittered, a polished diamond, no trace of the ugly from before. A make-over completed. Feeling the soft after-glow, with endorphins humming happily away through his body leaving him loose and happy, a wicked thought occurred. Why, that was a marvellous idea. Mr. Police-Officer would be delighted, and he could sit back and watch, confident in the fact that they would never know, never guess. Who me? I’d never. Dipping his hands in the bedding around her that had soaked up the blood, cream coloured sheets left deep red turning rust brown around the edges already as the blood pool dried. His blue gloves came away slick, and he regarded the slightly clotted composition for long seconds, revelling in the over-powering smell and slick texture. His fingertips pressed against the white wall lightly, writing in loopy girly hand:

_Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice_

It was displayed above the bed like the title to his masterpiece and he sat back on his heels, high on the glow of, for once, everything in his life being completely perfect. It gave him all sorts of ideas for the next one. She would be even better. Giddy, he moved to the front hall and stepped out of the slippers he'd brought, carefully peeling away the smock he was wearing and the bandana that kept his hair out of the way. All of it was folded away neatly and carefully so as to not leave a trace of him behind, then he stepped into his shoes and used the inside out gloves to open the door and lock it behind him. He would toss her keys at the train station later. Just more trash. 

He needed to get home and crash; he had to work tomorrow.

\--

After Yoko’s little appearance Ryo hadn’t been in the mood for sex. Koyama couldn’t blame him. That was quite the shock after all, enough to kill off any mood they had been working up, no wonder how fevered it had been, exposing skin and kissing and sucking at the recently exposed skin until the heat of the room was close to boiling over.

The memory was a bit bitter sweet.

Yoko had looked drunk but lucid, angry mostly. His heart twisted, _"I mean, you don't need it any more, do you?"_ How wrong he was. Koyama did need him, more maybe than he had realized. Ryo came back, got dressed and left without really saying anything but looking out of sorts.

Lying in bed with the darkness spilling in through the window, too alone in the sheets. God knew where his cat had decided to sleep that night. Breathing out in a rush, he rolled on his side and hugged a pillow to his chest. The last thing he wanted was to hurt the other man, which had never been his intention. No one understood.

“Fuck.” He hissed softly, pressing his eyes closed against the sting of tears. He always did begin to cry too easily - stress made it worse and there wasn’t anything like the stress that he was under lately. Hadn’t really cried in years. He would need to find Yoko, try to talk, try to explain. When he closed his eyes it was his wife’s face he saw, beautiful in her anger and his face stinging where she had hit him. He hadn’t stopped her from taking it out on him; she hadn’t understood either but that was to be expected. He still felt bad about that even years later.

He rolled out of bed and began to get ready for work, unaware of what was waiting for him at the station.

He searched for Yoko and couldn’t find him. Feeling ill at ease, he let his day begin.

Hours later, the autopsies were over for the moment when the body retrieval called him. An emergency, and since when had a body been an emergency? It wasn’t like it was going anywhere.

“Oh my god.” Koyama needed to grip the doorframe of the autopsy room as Nakamaru unzipped the body bag and pulled out a biohazard bag full of diced bits.

“Sorry doc, we tried to separate them at the scene, but you will probably have more luck here.” He shook his head, looking faintly green around the gills. “Tanaka, come help me.”

The other man, usually the first to crack a joke at the expense of the dead, looked ruffled and unhappy, his mouth twisted in a line. Koyama didn’t often deal with them because Yabu and Hikaru handled receiving most of the time, but they were on lunch break. There were three bags in total, each lined up on his dissection counter before the body even came out.

“Sorry doc.” Tanaka said and Koyama breathed in through his mouth shallowly, trying to fight the urge to puke. “The officers moved a can up to take turns blowing chunks,” he added, squinting at Koyama’s face.

“I’m okay.” Trauma had nothing on this. Almost completely skinned, large pieces torn from her like strips of dinner. He tasted bile and forced it back down.

“Oh my god.” That was Hikaru and a slam of door, feet slapping on the floor. Koyama pressed his eyes closed together.

“The scene wasn’t any better.” Nakamaru shook his head, sticking his hands in the bag and smearing his smock in thick blood, heaving as Tanaka moved the bag out from under the body.

“Fucked up shit.” Tanaka hissed, helping move the legs out of the body bag. “Satomi Matsuda, 23 years old, found this morning by a neighbor. The walls were painted.”

His stomach rolled, he knew this handy work. This was their killer; he had stuck again. They had said they were going to stop him. Koyama didn’t want to see this, didn’t want to know that this had once been a bright young girl who only wanted to be a star. Wanted to be loved and held like everyone one else. Who would be here to mourn her?

“Has the next of kin been notified?”

“Homicide is on it.”

“Thank you.”

“No problem.” The duo gave him shaky smiles as they finished up and high-tailed it out of his den.

He was left alone with Matsuda and shook his head at her defiled corpse. “What happened to you my dear?”

He hovered around the body for a few moments more, feeling bad because he hadn’t done enough to stop it. He should have done more. Anger burned in the pit of his stomach; they had said that they could catch him, stop this from happening again.

“Doctor?” Yabu stuck his head inside, his eyes coming to rest just past his elbow at the torn and mangled body resting on the scuffed stainless steel of the autopsy table. In the cold clinical setting the deep red was even darker, more sinister. “Hikaru was throwing up in the bathroom…” He shook his head, looking unnerved. “It’s like Watanabe.”

“Serial killer.” The words caught in his throat and Yabu paled a little. Stuff like this was only supposed to happen on tv.

It took the better part of two hours to go through all the documentation on the body. This was a criminal case and a lower-level peon of the homicide department was in charge of observing and taking their notes. A member of forensics was there snapping photos of the body in the stark lighting. Koyama laid everything out, assessing the damage as he went and wondering if he would be able to find a cause of death under all this mess and desperately praying that she had been dead when this was done to her, too. A small consolation at best.

It was like a jig-saw puzzle, lift up a piece of flesh and try to match it to a place on her body. The three of them spent hours moving around the single table, reaching into messy biohazard bags and putting organs and skin tissue in place. Her face was past mauled, and he had no doubt that when he got to see a photo of her she would be pretty, so pretty and so young. 

Hours later all he could say was that all the skin trauma and organ damage had happened post mortem, same M.O. as the Watanabe case. He shook his head and scooped everything back into respective bags, feeling tired and wrung out from not sleeping enough, and not really looking forward to getting more sleep. This was going to haunt him.

Everything was settled, except for maybe the gnawing in his stomach and guilt - he should have been able to find something more than nothing. Then maybe they could have caught this guy by now and Matsuda wouldn’t be lying on his table. He’d apologized to her corpse as he pieced her back together.

Without really a destination in mind, he wandered out of his office and up through the halls. He had a half-formed plan of finding Yoko. He should confront him, find out what was going on. Instead he found Ryo looking tired and wrung out. He took a savage kick at the vending machine.

“That’s not going to help anything,” he said softly and Ryo jumped, turning to look at him. His eyes flicked up and down Koyama’s body. “You’re on the Matsuda case.” It was less of a question and more of a statement.

“It’s our guy. Brass are finally seeing that this is a serial. Machine ate my damn money.” Ryo looked like he was going to kick it again so Koyama stepped forward, digging in his pockets to find some change for the machine. He hit the button for grape juice. The machine clunked then two bottles dropped into the tray.

“There, take the other one for Yoko.” He crowded Ryo a little as he went for the drinks, taking comfort in the solid warmth of his body. They didn’t really have the type of relationship where he could ask Ryo for a hug, or just a reassuring pat on the back. He probably could ask and Ryo would, but it might make things awkward. They meant too much to him for that; it seemed like he was already losing Yoko.

Fuck it. He pressed against Ryo’s side, reaching for the clink of the change hitting the tray.

“I don’t have time,” Ryo sighed, bottle of juice in each hand. “At this rate I won’t even be going home for days.”

“I know.” It wasn’t really rejection but it stung a bit anyways.

“Learn anything from the body?”

“All the trauma is post mortem. It is the same, impossible to tell the cause of death. Samples are with tox - I won’t know anything else until then.”

“Can you tell the time of death?”

“No, too much mutilation.”

“Thanks.” Ryo stood back and at least he looked a little less volatile; it oddly eased a bit of the knot in Koyama’s stomach.

“I’ll let you know if I find anything else.” He wandered away, Ryo giving him a little wave over his shoulder. He was so hard to push into necking at work. Koyama found himself on the roof smoking, half hoping that Yoko would show up. Two cigarettes later and he hadn’t, so Koyama ground out the butt under his boot and returned back to the basement levels, feeling more refreshed and ready to face the gory details of the Matsuda case.

He put a call into the family, arranging with them a cremation service and a funeral home, tried to talk them out of coming to see the body but the older man on the other line would not be dissuaded. Koyama closed his eyes; he did not want to be there to deal with that, could only imagine what it would be like to have your child torn away, but to see what someone else had done to her body on top of that? It would be like torture.

He concluded the call and set up an appointment for the next week when her family could come in. Homicide would have probably already contacted him for details on the case.

Didn’t mean he couldn’t do a little digging when they got here.

A week later he was talking to the father, sitting in his office.

“I know that the police have spoken with you.” The man was older, salary-man appearance, a mid-class suit and balding on top. “But I would like to caution you again against going to see your daughter’s body.

“I need to see,” he said, voice a little more gruff then Koyama would have guessed. “I want to see Satomi.”

“She’s gone, all that is left is her body.” Koyama shook his head. They had put a rush on the toxicology results and as he had expected, they came back clean. Just like all the other girls. “Do you have a photo of her on you?”

“No.” He shook his head. “Wait, yes I do, I brought it with me.” He reached into the duffle bag he had with him. “I had not spoken with her in a few years. Her mother left about five years ago and we fell out of contact after that.” He went to hand the photo to Koyama but he shook his head.

“No, keep it. I want you to look at it before we go to see her body, because I want you to remember Satomi that way, and not by what you are going to see.” The man paled a little but nodded gamely, obviously determined. Koyama stood and lead Matsuda-san out of his office, past Hikaru, who was looking rather glum, and Yabu, who was sinking deep in his chair and carefully not looking at them. Neither of them expected this to go any better than he did.

He led him down a short hallway to the special autopsy room where the body had been laid out for viewing. He paused at the door way blocking it with his own thin frame. “Matsuda-san, please remember your daughter the way she was.”

“Get on with it.” Koyama nodded and moved out of the way, standing just on the inside of the doorframe and letting the father through. He took a few hesitant steps then rushed towards the body.

“No,” he said, face pale. “That can’t be Satomi. Are you sure?”

“Unfortunately yes.” Dental records had proved beyond a doubt that this body had once been Satomi Matsuda.

“Who could do this to her?” He reached out, hand hovering over what was left of her face, already beginning to rot despite the cold they had kept her in.

“The police are doing everything they can to find out.” Matsuda broke down crying, and Koyama could only stand there watching, feeling his pain. “She didn’t suffer.” Koyama said and the man was shaking, holding his body stiff as he cried. “This was done after she was dead. She didn’t feel any of it.”

“But she’s still gone.” Voice even thicker with tears and mucus.

“I’m sorry for your loss.” The words were meaningless but automatic.

They stayed there in the room with her body until her father could compose himself enough to wipe away the tears; his face was horribly blotchy and he looked so much more human than when he had walked in looking all stuff and robotic. Koyama didn’t touch him, but he offered him a wan smile as he listened to a father say his final good byes.

“Parents are not supposed to outlive their children,” he said while they were out in the hall on the way back to Koyama’s office.

“No, they are not,” Koyama agreed.

“She wanted to have three kids one day, a little girl and two boys to take care of her.”

“That is a nice family to have.” Matsuda looked like he was ready to cry again but got it under control.

“She won’t get the chance.” They made it back to his office before the older man began to cry brokenly again.

Not all the training in the world and years of experience with family would ever make this moment better. It drove home that these bodies, these girls, were people; they had family who would miss them and had a future ahead of them full and bright, dazzling as the smiles in the photos. 

“I have this - I found it when I was collecting her stuff from her apartment. I’m not sure if it is relevant.” He opened the duffel and removed a purse. “I’m not sure of the name of the detective in charge.”

“I can get it upstairs to the task-force for you.”

“Thank you.” He bowed his head as he handed over the purse. Koyama set it down on the end of the desk, bright colours and a swirling pattern, the life and love of a young girl. “You have been a great help.”

“I do my best.”

They spoke for a bit, Koyama listened to his stories about Satomi, feeling as if he understood her just a little more, and got to understand the true depth of the tragedy of her death. He walked the older man out, and told him to call if he needed any help with the funeral arrangements, or the certificate.

When he went back to his office he found her purse sitting there; he would call someone down here for it either way, but before that what was the harm in looking for himself? A knock-off designer, but well made to look expensive. He was careful as he combed through her stuff, by now Ryo and Yoko would have searched for any connection to the Endlix agency. And when they found it they would have pounced, working hard to put a stop to this.

Still, it didn’t hurt to look. When rifling through the contents of her wallet he struck gold; nestled there in cards with small hand written print reminding her about hair appointments and nail appointments was a business card. He stared at it for a moment. He could almost appreciate the bloodthirsty look the detectives got when a new lead was uncovered. Maybe they already knew this, and maybe they didn’t. He would need to find Ryo as soon as he could to tell him about it. Would have told Yoko, but the other man was still avoiding him. A week later and that still hurt.

\--

Ryo reached for his coffee with one hand and rubbed at his temple with the other, looking up from the stack of paper scattered across his desk to keep his eyes from crossing. It was a week since they'd gotten the records from the pretty little personal assistant at Endlix and even with all of homocide's best and brightest combing through them they were still no closer to catching whoever was behind this. All that he'd really gotten out of this was a headache and an inferiority complex after seeing how much Matsumoto and his army of employees made.

It still beat the nightmares he knew he'd be having for a long time after their latest crime scene, though. He'd thought nothing could be worse than what the sick fuck had done to Watanabe, but he'd been wrong. There'd been so much blood this time that it had almost looked like it had belonged there, an entire room painted an artful crimson. If it hadn't been for the pieces of hair and skin left lying on the floor or the body on the bed, skinned and left to lie like so much rotting meat, he might have actually been able to believe it.

Even the message he'd left for them on the wall, written in the victim's own blood above her headboard, had looked like it belonged there. Words written on a little girl's wall by her parents to ward off the monsters that lurked in the dark. Only Matsuda Satomi hadn't been a little girl. And one of the monsters had managed to find her, find all of them.

The only real break in the case after the last murder was that they now had a nickname for this guy around the bullpen - "The Sugar and Spice Killer", a name almost too sweet and innocuous for crimes this gruesome.

The bastard was toying with them and they were getting nowhere, buried under too much paperwork and mired down with facts that were leading nowhere. And when Ryo wasn't making himself crazy with this case, he was spending all his time worrying about Yoko, and then Koyama, and then Yoko again, running over the mess that was his personal life again and again and again until he was at even more of a loss for what to do to fix it.

Ryo let his gaze drift over to where Yoko was sitting, brows creased in a frown and lips drawn into a tight line. "Yoko."

Yoko didn't so much answer him as grunt, not even bothering to look away from the record he was combing through to meet Ryo's eyes.

"Do you want more coffee?" Ryo watched as Yoko shook his head, still not bothering to look at or talk to him and sighed, frustrated. He could count on one hand the number of times that Yoko had actually spoken directly to him since he'd found out Ryo and Koyama's little secret, and Ryo was really at a loss for what to do about it. He wasn't really used to dealing with this kind of shit at the best of times, let alone when he was snowed under with work and running on two hours of sleep a night, vending machine sandwiches, and enough coffee to keep ten people going. 

He watched Yoko pointedly ignoring him, the other's eyes fixed stubbornly on the report in front of him and felt anger piling on top of the frustration that he already felt from this case and the week long silence. "We need to talk about this."

"Did you find something?" Yoko actually looked up, giving Ryo the first look that was anything but sour for the first time in days. 

"No, not the case." Ryo watched Yoko's lips thin again. He could hear the frustration and worry in his own voice as he continued. "The other night. At Koyama's."

"Not now."

"Then when? We can't really work as partners if you're not speaking to me--"

"Fuck's sake, Ryo, we have a case here." Yoko's look was hard as he glared at Ryo across their desks. Beneath all the resentment and anger he looked exhausted, and that worried Ryo more than anything. He didn't know how either of them were supposed to keep going like this. "And I'd like to solve it before anyone else dies."

"Fine." Ryo glared back, fist clenching around his pen as he looked down at the file on his desk and took a deep breath. Yoko was right. He was being a complete dick about things, but he was right. He'd just do his best to ignore this for now and hope that once this case was over they could get things sorted out. 

The silence that hung in the air between them was so awkward it was nearly palpable, but Ryo clamped down the rising urge to pick a fight and forced himself to concentrate on the task at hand. It was hard, given that at the moment all they were doing was combing through hundreds of thousands of lines of text detailing every person that worked for or came into contact with the talent hopefuls at Domoto Endlix. Talent scouts, choreographers, make-up artists, stylists, voice coaches, musicians, managers, company management, they were all suspect and it was their job to look through the reports, schedules, receipts from trips they'd taken, every last scrap of paper that the company kept on them (and they kept a _lot_ \- Ryo didn't have to fill out this much paperwork and he was a cop, which meant more paperwork than most sane people could handle) for anything suspicious. 

Luckily brass had decided to pull in extra manpower and form an unofficial task force after it had come to light that they had a serial killer (and one that was getting more and more dangerous, if the Watanabe and Matsuda crime scenes were any indication) on their hands, so Ryo and Yoko weren't stuck wading through the mountains of paper that Endlix had sent over on their own. Ryo already had a headache from the seemingly endless list of times, dates and appointments in the company president's calendar, which had somehow fallen to him. He couldn't imagine the two of it doing it all on their own without the extra help.

"Ryo."

Ryo looked up, surprise written on his face as he met Yoko's eyes. "Yeah?" 

"Have you looked at anything of Matsumoto's?"

He wanted to talk about the case. Of course. "No, I think Matsumoto's files went to Taguchi. I got stuck with Domoto's schedule, which is a big, fat nothing." Ryo tried not to sound too disappointed. "Why?"

Yoko shrugged. "Just something I heard in one of the interviews." Yoko frowned, his face taking on that far off expression that he got sometimes when he was working the facts of a case over in his head.

"And that was...?"

"Apparently Matsumoto gets stressed when the boss is out of town. Harsh with his employees, snapping at everyone - he doesn't take the stress very well." Yoko rubbed at the back of his neck and blew out a frustrated sigh. "His assistant Tegoshi acts almost like he's afraid of him."

"It could be strictly professional. Saying anything that's less than glowing about your boss to the cops isn't usually a smart career move," Ryo pointed out as he echoed Yoko's frown. It _could_ be professional, but Yoko's hunches were usually solid. Even if things had been awkward between them lately (to put it mildly), he still trusted Yoko to do his job. 

"It's more than that. Tegoshi seemed legitimately scared of him - he wouldn't even talk to me about it at the office."

"So where did he tell you?"

"I met him at a bar I use for interviews sometimes." Yoko gave Ryo a look, a challenge in his eyes.

"You met with an informant alone?"

"We meet with informants alone all the time, Ryo."

"Yeah, in normal cases. This is not a normal case, Yoko." Ryo crossed his arms and gave the other a hard look. "You shouldn't be talking to anyone without back-up."

"Please, it was Tegoshi." Yoko rolled his eyes. "You've met the kid, Ryo. He's not exactly dangerous and he wasn't going to talk to me with anyone else around."

Ryo grunted. He'd give Yoko that the kid wasn't exactly threatening, but it was still a stupid risk to take, a risk that Yoko normally wouldn't take without at least telling him about it first. "It was still stupid. You should have at least told me."

"I did what I had to for the case." Yoko rose from his chair, his movements jerky, like he was holding his anger in check. 

"Where are you going?" 

"To talk to Taguchi and see if he found anything on Matsumoto."

Ryo sighed and waved his hand in a shooing motion, biting back the urge to argue. Bickering with Yoko wasn't doing anything to help the case, even if the "case" right now meant combing through the schedule of a man who already had alibis for all the murders--

"Shit." Ryo swore under his breath and snatched up the pad he'd been using for notes, flipping a few pages back. It was a sign of just how tired he was that he hadn't thought of this as soon as Yoko had brought the Matsumoto issue up. "Wait, Yoko." 

"What?"

"Matsumoto gets stressed when Domoto's out of town, right?" Ryo held the pad out and waited for Yoko to take it. "Each murder coincides with one of his trips out of town - one of his longer trips, actually. He was gone for at least two weeks for each and the murders took place 3-4 days after he left."

"Plenty of time for all that stress to build--"

"--and for Matsumoto to snap." Ryo gave Yoko a grim smile and watched the other return it, forgetting for just a moment just how shitty things had been between them lately. 

"We'd better go talk to Joshima. He'll need to get things ready here if we're going to bring Matsumoto in."

Ryo stood, nodding as he grabbed his suit jacket off the back of his chair and slipped it on. The evidence was all circumstantial, at best, but there was something here. They could find out what, exactly, when they brought Matsumoto in.

\--

In the end, Matsumoto was almost disappointingly easy to bring in, just a few protests of his innocence before he let himself be lead out to a patrol car. They didn't even have to cuff him - a fact that irked Ryo, since he would have liked to have been the one to slap the cuffs on the bastard himself, especially when Matsumoto had the gall to look and act so genuinely shocked that he was the one they were collaring for the murders. Probably thought that he was too smart to be caught by the cops. Murderers like this always were arrogant.

It turned out that Koyama's little lead with Mizubata had come in handy when it had come time to convince the Chief that Matsumoto was their man, her death having taken place less than two months after Matsumoto took over for the former company Vice President and during the first of Domoto's lengthy trips abroad. It was still circumstantial, but even Joshima couldn't deny that taken altogether it looked like a solid lead. All they needed was to find something, anything, that tied their man directly to the crimes, and that was where a confession came in.

Ryo was still relieved that the case was essentially in the proverbial bag, but he knew he wasn't the only one who'd felt a little jilted by what seemed like a rather anti-climactic ending. The look on Yoko's face as they'd driven in silence back to the station had said it all. The whole thing had earned them both a hardy pat on the back from their fellow officers and promises of commendations from the top, but Ryo couldn't even find it in him to be excited over that. They'd managed to bring their killer in, but not before he'd killed six girls. He couldn't help but feel like they'd failed in some way. If Koyama hadn't put the pieces together and convinced them that something was going on, how many more girls would he have butchered like Watanabe and Matsuda before they'd stopped him?

It was probably just the lack of sleep talking, though. Things would probably be better when he came back in the morning and he and Yoko got their crack at questioning their suspect. He wouldn't have minded having their shot now, but Joshima had taken one look at Ryo and Yoko and ordered them both home, telling them he'd sic Matsuoka on them if either of them showed their faces back here before 9 a.m. Ryo didn't know about Yoko, but he'd been too scared of Matsuoka's particular brand of tough love to argue.

Yoko. Ryo glanced over at his partner, feeling a pang of sympathy at the weary stoop of the other's shoulders.

"Good job today, Yoko."

"Thanks." 

Ryo was almost relieved at the tight lipped smile that Yoko gave him. It looked more weary than actually happy or grateful, but it was the first thing even resembling a smile he'd gotten from Yoko since the scene at Koyama's apartment. It wasn't much, but he was going to take what he could get.

Ryo watched as Yoko took a seat on the bench in front of his locker and reached up, loosening his tie in a weary gesture. He felt about as worn down as Yoko looked, suit rumpled and dark circles under his eyes, blood shot and a bit dazed. Now that the adrenaline surge he'd felt when they'd realized that Matsumoto was looking good for all this had worn off, he could feel every hour that he hadn't slept over the past week in his bones and all he could do was follow Yoko's lead and slump down onto the bench a few feet away from him with a sigh.

Solving a case was usually the best feeling in the world, a high that left him buzzing around for hours, if not days. With a case this big and gruesome he should have been feeling it for weeks, but instead all he felt was wrung out. They'd managed to bring a sick bastard in off the streets and had probably saved a lot of innocent lives, and he was glad for that, but it was a grim sort of satisfaction. Being done with the case just meant that he had more time to focus on the fucked over ruin that was his personal life.

It was probably for the best that they'd been sent home for the day, for all that he was itching to get in there and make that bastard spill all his secrets. They were no good to anyone like this.

"Hey, Yoko."

"Hm?" The answer was tired but not hostile. Ryo took that as a good sign and screwed up his courage.

"How about we go out for dinner to celebrate? We could go to that really nice barbecue place by the train station. My treat." Ryo smiled a little and tried not to sound too pathetic or hopeful. It was bad timing, given how exhausted physically and mentally they both were at this point, but he had to try. Yoko was his partner - his _friend_ \- and neither of them could afford to leave things the way they were between them. It was affecting them both at work and after hours, if the ever present stench of stale beer Yoko stumbled in with every morning was any indication.

"I can't." Yoko shook his head and leaned over, opening up his locker as he slipped off his shoes, obviously avoiding Ryo's eyes.

"Can't? What, big plans tonight?"

Yoko sighed. "No, no plans."

"Then you can come out for a quick dinner." Ryo felt a little like their roles had been reversed, him carrying the conversation and trying to goad the other into socializing while Yoko made the excuses. He missed having to tell Yoko to shut up because he was talking too much. 

"No."

"Then forget dinner. We can just grab a beer."

"Fuck, Ryo, I don't want to." Yoko tossed his shoes into the locker, the sound of them banging against the metal backing making Ryo flinch. Ryo watched as Yoko grabbed out his tennis shoes - pastel colored with matching laces, something that Ryo had given him no amount of shit about in the past - and pulled them on, obviously unable to get away from Ryo fast enough.

Ryo sighed, frustration settling in his chest as he reached out to grab the other's arm, ignoring the glare that earned him. "We have to talk about this sometime."

"Not here." Yoko tried to jerk his arm out of Ryo's grasp, his frown deepening when Ryo held on stubbornly. "And not now. All I want to do is go home."

"And what, drink yourself stupid?" 

"Maybe. Last time I checked I was an adult and I could do whatever the hell I wanted, Ryo."

Ryo let go of Yoko's arm as he felt his temper start to flare, taking a deep breath to try to keep it in check. "You're an adult but you're also my partner, Yoko. I don't like watching you stumble in here every morning hungover or still half-drunk. You're going to get yourself killed."

"I show up here everyday and I do my job. What I do in my free time is none of your damn business."

"I promised I'd have your back and I meant it. That doesn't stop at 5:30."

Yoko closed his eyes and let out a tired, sad sounding sigh, running a hand over his face and up through his hair while Ryo watched him in barely contained silence. "I don't want to fight with you, Ryo. I just can't talk about this. Not now."

"Fine." Ryo jerked his locker open and reached up, yanking off his tie and stuffing it in his locker. "I'm going to talk to Joshima on Monday." 

"About what?" Yoko jerked his head around, brows furrowed in suspicion, or apprehension, or maybe both. Ryo couldn't tell and he was too fed up at this point to bother puzzling it out.

"Assigning me a new partner." Ryo toed his shoes off and leaned forward to dig a pair of ratty high tops out of his locker, using it as an excuse to not have to look at the other man while he continued. "This isn't working out. Maybe if you're working with someone that you don't hate, you'll stop whatever the hell it is that you've been doing to yourself."

"Fuck's sake, Ryo, I don't hate you."

"Right. That's why you've done such a good job ignoring me and being a dick every chance you get. That's why you smell like a brewery every morning and you snap at anyone who comes near you lately." Ryo sat up and ran a hand through his hair, frustrated. "I get it, alright. You're disgusted, weirded out, whatever. It's not any different than what I'd expect from most guys around here."

"That's what you think this is about? That I hate you because you're gay?"

Ryo flinched a little at the word but didn't try to deny it or argue. "What else am I supposed to think?"

"Jesus, Ryo, I don't give a shit who you fuck on your own time, okay?" Yoko laughed then, humorless and a bit hysterical. "It would be pretty hypocritical of me to hate you for something I've been doing, too."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"You weren't the only one fucking Koyama."

"What? If you're just saying that--"

"I wouldn't just say something like that." Yoko swore and gave Ryo a look that would have made him tread softly around the other if he hadn't been so pissed off himself at the moment. "And before you ask, I know because I was the one fucking him."

"How--"

"I don't think I have to explain how it works to you, Ryo." Yoko slammed his locker shut, anger and jealousy and something that sounded a hell of a lot like pity in his voice. "I'm pretty sure you already know about that part."

Ryo's hands curled around the edge of the bench, grip almost painfully tight as hurt, anger and jealousy all vied for top spot on the list of things he was feeling at the moment. "You're fucking Koyama."

"Was." Yoko reached up, scrubbing a hand through his hair, some of the anger seeming to just drain out of him. "I broke it off the other night."

"The night that I was there."

"Yeah." Yoko laughed again, the sound bitter. "That wasn't part of the plan. You weren't supposed to be there."

"Wait - did you know about him and me when you--"

"No! Fuck, Ryo, what do you take me for?" Yoko's eyes narrowed into a glare. "I had no idea you two were..." Yoko waved his hands through the air in frustration. "Together. Not when I was with him, anyway. I saw you kissing in his hallway a few days before. That's why I decided to call it off."

Ryo was quiet, his hands clenching and unclenching as he sorted through all the information and emotion vying for attention in his head. Yoko's coldness towards him, the things the other had said that night, Koyama's evasiveness - they all made sense now. Thinking about it, he didn't know how he hadn't figured it out before. He was a cop and Yoko was his partner and his friend. He was supposed to be able to read him. He _should_ have been able to read him. He _should_ have been able to read Koyama, for that matter, but he'd let his feelings for Koyama and his fear of being caught blind him. "But you knew I didn't know about him and you?"

"I figured it out." Yoko shrugged, sounding as tired and hurt as Ryo felt.

"You're a dick."

"What? I'm not the one that was fucking around here."

"No, but you knew what was going on and you didn't tell me." Ryo was aware of just how loudly he was talking, and a nagging voice kept reminding him that they were still at the station and this was _not the place for this_ , but he just couldn't bring himself to care. He rose from the bench suddenly, giving his locker a sharp kick that wasn't nearly as satisfying as it should have been. "You didn't think that I'd want to know about all this? You let me think you _hated_ me, Yoko."

"And how the hell was I supposed to tell you? Over coffee? While we were doing casework? Drop by your place after work?" The anger was back in Yoko's voice as he stood and took a step toward Ryo, looking as wound up as Ryo felt. "It's not like you were exactly honest about your private life, either."

"This is different and you know it." Ryo glared at the other and he stood stiffly, back rigid as he wished that Yoko wasn't the one with the height advantage here. "You're my partner - my _friend_ , one of my only friends here. You should have told me what was going on instead of drinking yourself half to death and being a complete bastard."

"Fuck, Ryo, did you ever think that I didn't tell you because you _are_ my friend? Maybe I didn't want to hurt you."

"Too late for that." Ryo narrowed his eyes and leaned in, his voice low and hot with anger. "You should have told me instead of keeping it to yourself and playing martyr. Koyama--" Ryo clenched his hand into a fist, blunt fingernails digging sharply into his palm. "I deserved to know."

Yoko swallowed, the muscle in his jaw jumping visibly as he seemed to struggle with his words. "I wasn't exactly in a good frame of mind at the time. I didn't know how to fucking tell you, okay?"

Ryo opened his mouth to retort and then shut it, fingernails painful against his palm as he tightened his fist and fought the urge to take his frustration out on Yoko. Slugging him wouldn't really accomplish anything, even if it was really god damn tempting and Yoko kind of deserved it at this point. "It just had to be you, didn't it? It couldn't have been someone else." Someone that he didn't know and wouldn't have felt bad about giving a nice right hook to the face. "Why the hell would Koyama do this?"

"I didn't know that you were partners." 

Ryo caught Yoko's expression at the same time that he heard the voice. He whirled around, only to find Koyama behind them, face pale and impossibly sad as his gaze shifted between them. It made Ryo's throat clench to see him like that, looking hurt and scared and like all he needed was someone's arms around him, grounding him. Ryo almost moved towards him before he remembered that this was all Koyama's fault in the first place. "So you didn't know. Is that supposed to make it okay?"

"No, but I wouldn't have, if I'd known."

"Wouldn't have screwed around with us both? You would have picked someone else?" Ryo watched Koyama nod and bit back a bitter laugh. The entire situation was just so god damn unfunny. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I couldn't." Koyama's frowned, swaying uncertainly on his feet, like he wanted to take a step forward but wasn't sure if he should. "I never meant for this to happen. Things just... it wasn't supposed to happen like this."

"You don't accidentally start sleeping with two men, Koyama," Ryo practically hissed, turning his head to avoid seeing the pain that brought out on the other's face. "What did you think, I wouldn't find out? That we could just keep on doing whatever it is we've been doing now that Yoko was out of the way?"

"It wasn't like that--"

"You used us." Ryo shook his head, not looking at either man as he bent to pull his shoes on, not bothering to lace them, the urge to be out of this room and away from both Koyama and Yoko almost overwhelming. "Don't call me anymore. Forget you ever had my number."

"Wait, Ryo--" 

"No." Ryo felt familiar fingers on his arm and jerked away, eyes narrowed to slits. "Don't fucking touch me. Leave me alone."

Koyama jerked back, eyes wide. Ryo let out a deep breath as he watched the other swallow, mouth opening and closing like he was biting back his words.

"Leave me alone," he repeated, the words less pissed off and more wounded as he turned away again.

"Ryo, stop. I have something you need to see - from the case."

"From the case?" Yoko spoke up while Ryo took a deep breath, giving himself a moment to pull himself together before he turned in time to see Koyama nodding and holding out a small white card to Yoko. This had better be good.

"Matsuda's father brought her purse in when he came by to view the body." Koyama's voice caught and he cleared his throat, eyes fixed on the card. "I found this in her wallet. I thought you'd want to see it."

Ryo watched as Yoko took the card from Koyama, unable to miss the way the M.E.'s fingers trembled ever so slightly. Ryo ignored it and pushed his feelings aside, forcing his mind to focus on the case. Yoko lifted the card to read it, swearing loudly as he finished and practically thrust it into Ryo's hands. It took about five seconds for Ryo to read the information printed there in neat block letters, and another five for his mind to catch up and actually process what he was seeing.

"... Tegoshi?" He forgot about their argument momentarily and looked up, meeting first Koyama's eyes and then Yoko's, his brain running a mile a minute as he tried to process this new information. "Does he deal directly with the talent?"

"No."

"He did this, didn't he?" Koyama this time, voice low and vaguely horrified. Ryo and Yoko shared a look and Yoko nodded, taking the card back from Ryo and staring down at it for a long moment. 

"Looks that way." Yoko gripped the card tight, his fingers turning white from the pressure. "All that crap about Matsumoto getting stressed...."

"He played us." Ryo finished the thought, his eyes flickering toward the door leading out into the station. Shibutani and Ninomiya were in there now, questioning Matsumoto, most likely running into nothing but dead ends. 

"We need to go get him." Yoko reached into his pocket and dug out his phone, flipping it open and scrolling through his list of contacts. "I want to be the one to bring that little prick in. Before he hurts anyone else."

Ryo nodded, images from the last two crime scenes flashing behind his eyes as he opened up his locker and took out his gun and holster from their place in the back, fastening it around his hips. It sat there, the slight weight and cool press of metal through his shirt familiar and reassuring. He'd only had to pull his gun a few times and he'd never actually fired it while on duty, but he felt better for having it. Ryo unsnapped the catch for the gun and pulled it out, popping the clip out and checking everything over. 

It had been there this whole time, right in front of their eyes, hidden behind a pretty face and a fake smile. It was a rookie mistake to make, and he couldn't help but wonder if they'd let their personal troubles distract them from what should have been obvious. If they'd paid closer attention and not let themselves get distracted Matsuda Satomi might still be alive. They'd essentially gotten her killed.

Well, it wasn't happening again. 

He could hear Yoko on the phone behind him, chatting up Tegoshi and asking to meet him to "take him up on his offer" (whatever that meant. He tried not to think too hard about the possible implications) in a voice that was shockingly normal. Playful, almost. If Ryo hadn't known Yoko so well he wouldn't have picked up on the barely controlled anger behind his words.

Yoko was done by the time Ryo was satisfied with his inspection. He slid his weapon back into his holster, turning to give his partner a questioning look. "Should we go request backup?"

Yoko shook his head, mouth set in a determined line as he brushed past Ryo and moved to grab his own weapon. "Shibutani and Ninomiya are the only ones still here. Everyone else is gone for the day or out on patrol. Unless you want to grab someone from dispatch for backup."

"Phone it in from the car, then?"

Yoko nodded, flashing Ryo a look as he fastened his holster around his hips. Ryo grabbed a set of keys off the hooks stashed against the far wall while Yoko checked over his gun. They were both locked and loaded and halfway to the door before Koyama forced them to remember that he was still there. 

"I'm coming with you."

"Like hell you are." Ryo and Yoko said nearly simultaneously, stopping a few steps shy of the doorway to give him equally hard looks.

"This isn't any place for a civilian." Ryo scowled, not caring how harsh he was being. They didn't have time for this right now and he didn't have the patience. 

"I'm not a civilian." Koyama's words were uncharacteristically sharp, his jaw set and arms cross in an expression that was more stubborn than Ryo had thought he was capable of. Koyama didn't have to be stubborn - he was persuasive enough to get what he wanted without it.

"Close enough." It was Yoko's turn this time, his voice echoing Ryo's impatience. "You're not a cop, Koyama."

"I might not be a cop, but I'm just as involved in this as you are. You wouldn't even know about Tegoshi if it weren't for me." There it was, that stubborness again. Stubborness and an edge of something that sounded almost like pleading. "You can argue all you want but I'm coming with you. I want to see this through to the end just as badly as you do."

Fuck. Ryo looked away from Koyama and over at Yoko, the other's expression seeming to say exactly what Ryo was thinking. They did not have time to argue against the guilt trip Koyama was throwing their way. Especially not when he was half-right.

"Fine." Yoko bit out the word and levelled a warning gaze at Koyama. "But you stay quiet and out of the way."

"You can wait in the car." Ryo added and Yoko nodded before turning to head out the door, Ryo and Koyama hot on his heels.

\--

The knife felt heavy in his coat pocket, a rousing staccato against his leg as he walked. Bump, bump, bump. A marching tune to kill for.

He had picked it up as soon as he ended the call, weighing it in his hand, watching the way it gleamed in the light of his kitchen. It was a good knife; not too heavy, with a sturdy grip, wood worn smooth from years of use. One of the only items he had taken with him when he left his childhood home. He could see countless memories in the reflection of the steel, mostly of his mother. Chopping potatoes for his dinner, chasing him from the kitchen with a hellish screech, sobbing as she pressed the blade to his tiny thigh to remind him of what an utter disappointment he was.

Tegoshi smiled softly. Mother always did know best.

He wrapped the knife lovingly in an old newspaper and slipped it into his pocket, the familiar weight like a good luck charm as he stepped out into the night. If only Mother could see him now. How proud she would be.

It wasn't much of a walk to the park and the trip was made even shorter by the thrill of what was soon to come. Killing out in the open was new, but he refused to bring his work home with him. He was too smart for that. 

He didn't really _want_ to kill Yokoyama, and truth be told, there was a chance he wouldn't go through with the act either. They had Matsumoto; Tegoshi had watched the police cart him away that afternoon, feigning shock the whole time. Yokoyama had even squeezed his shoulder and assured him that 'it would all be over soon.' Tegoshi smirked at the memory. It was almost cute how he had the idiot wrapped around his little finger.

Still, he wasn't so foolhardy to think he was entirely in the clear. They could've figured out Matsumoto wasn't the man they'd been hunting. Not likely, what with the way he'd set his boss up, but it wasn't impossible either. If the detective knew the game was still in play, he'd keep sniffing around where he shouldn't. There was a cold sort of tenacity in Yokoyama that Tegoshi could almost respect. In a way, they weren't all that different. Just Tegoshi was smarter, better prepared. Ruthless.

Tegoshi began to pace, too antsy to sit still and wait. He ran his fingers along the fabric covering the knife. Yokoyama would be arriving soon, and the blade was singing a song of bloodlust with each tap against his thigh. Maybe Tegoshi would kill him anyway. No, it was too early to tell and he couldn't let his urges dictate his moves like that. He had to be calm; he had to wait. 

Patience and persistance had brought him far in life, and they'd yet to fail him. It had been all too easy to coax Yokoyama to eat from his hand, just like all the naive little girls before him. All he had to do was flash them a gentle smile and offer something they didn't have. His body, his face, his connections; whatever it was that they desired, and they followed him like the dumb animals they were, out of the pasture and into the slaughterhouse. 

No one ever expected anything from innocent little Tegoshi other than a pretty face and a shoulder to cry on. That was what made them all so disappointgly easy to play. He'd hoped the police would be of a higher caliber, but then the game would be over already, wouldn't it? And he was not in it to lose.

Everything hinged on how much Yokoyama knew, and how intent he was on seeing the game through to the end. 

He heard the footsteps before he saw him, turning just in time to catch Yokoyama trotting up like a stupid mutt coming to welcome his master home. "Tegoshi!"

"Yoko," he smiled, batting his eyelashes for effect and getting a nervous smile in return. Yokoyama had a beautiful mouth, pouty and pink, perfectly kissable. Shame he might have to close it permanently.

"Sorry, I would've got her sooner but I was held up at the office. You know, red tape." Yokoyama's smile seemed strained, exhausted. Exhausted was good. Exhausted meant he'd put up less of a fight.

Tegoshi smiled and shook his head, masking his expression with carefully calculated sympathy and just the right amount of admiration. Time to wave the treat in front of his nose. "It's fine. I feel safer knowing you're there to look out for us. If only there were more cops like you." 

If there were, he'd have more toys to play with.

Head bowed, Tegoshi started to stroll down the main path, hands behind his back as he set a slow, ambling pace, the crunch of gravel telling him Yokoyama had started to move as well. The road split not too far up ahead, one side leading to the park entrance and the other down to the lake, a more private route where the trees were more tightly grouped. Tegoshi would lead him down the second trail, coax the information out of him, and maybe take advantage of the solitude should he find out something not to his liking. Lovers were not the only ones who benefitted from taking the romantic way. "I still can't believe it. You're sure Matsumoto was the one responsible for all the murders?"

Yoko's eyes were pointed straight ahead, his jaw taut and expression dark. "That's how it looks."

That _was_ how it looked, wasn't it? Tegoshi brought a hand up to cover his mouth, playing off his smile as grief. He even pretended to choke back a sob. That's right. Jump through the hoop. Maybe Yokoyama would live to see another day after all.

All the same, he couldn't help but flinch when Yokoyama's arm was suddenly around his shoulders, pressing their sides together. He thought there was still some more time before he'd have to risk any physical intimacy, but it seemed Yokoyama was a fast mover. Or lonely, it didn't really matter which. Both were easy enough to twist in his favor. 

Tegoshi made a show of resting his head against Yokoyama's shoulder, bringing his hand up to rest over the other man's on his upper arm. They were almost to the fork in the road and the knife was singing loud as ever. Would he have to disappoint it or would he quench its thirst? 

As it turned out, he didn't have nearly as much time as he thought to dwell on the topic of how long Yokoyama had to live. For the second time in so many minutes, Yokoyama surprised him, this time by veering off to the left, guiding him clear of the private route in a wide arc from the trail's mouth. Tegoshi felt his smile falter. He was starting to get a little annoyed at Yokoyama's cavalier attitude towards his plans. "I thought we'd take a stroll down by the lake to take your mind off things."

"No, I think there's somewhere else I'd rather go."

Tegoshi could feel the warning flags popping up in his mind at the focus in that voice. He'd been feeling a little uneasy for a while, but he'd ignored his initial concerns, too focused on steering Yokoyama in the direction he wanted. Now, though, he was beginning to think that perhaps there was more going on than he'd thought. Yokoyama was too quiet, too demanding. Too in control of the situation for Tegoshi's liking. Tegoshi tried to squirm and place some room between the two of him but Yokoyama held him fast, picking up his pace.

That was when they caught sight of Nishikido at the park entrance. The smaller detective was standing next to an unmarked vehicle and glaring daggers at the two of them. Tegoshi thought he saw a third form in the car but couldn't tell from this distance. All he could focus on was the fact that Yokoyama's grip on his arm was almost painfully tight and that he seemed to be steering them both towards said car.

"Isn't that your partner?"

No response. Tegoshi forced an airy laugh, intent on playing out this charade as long as he could manage it. "Yoko?" Still nothing. With his panic levels rising like they were, he couldn't keep the uneasiness out of his voice. "Yoko, you're squeezing me."

"Sorry," Yokoyama sneered, "It's just that I don't trust you as far as I can throw you."

"Excuse me?"

"I don't appreciate being treated like an idiot, Tegoshi."

Tegoshi tried to smile, desperate to keep some semblance of control of a situation that was rapidly spiraling out of his hands. "You're not making any sense. You have--"

"What do I have, Tegoshi, other than the pretty little lies you fed me? They might have tasted sweet at first, but once the sugar you coated them with melted away, the aftertaste was pure shit."

They stopped abruptly, long enough for Yokoyama to lean in, staring down his nose at Tegoshi with an anger that made even him have to fight down the chill running up his spine. "We know it's you, you little shit, so you can drop the cute act. I'm not playing your fucked up little games anymore."

Tegoshi didn't even bother to hide the confusion on his face this time. He searched Yokoyama's face for any sort of hint that he was joking and found only hatred, sharp and cold like the knife at his side. How? He'd been so careful, so very, very careful. He was sure he had done everything right, so how did they find out? Where had he gone wrong?

There wasn't time to figure out the why, only the what next. Tegoshi forced his body to go lax, shoulders slumping in on him and bringing both of his hands to his face. "I... Oh god, you have to understand, I never meant to...!" He made a pathetic choking noise, sniffling for effect. Tears were a bit harder to fake but he was a master with twenty years of practice under his belt. If it meant the possibility of continuing the game a little longer, he would cry enough to flood the world. "I didn't want to hurt anyone!"

Yokoyama might have talked big, but when it came down to brass tacks, he obviously still had some sort of lingering fondness for Tegoshi. A fondness Tegoshi was more than happy to exploit. Stupid bastard. He'd see what happened when he underestimated people.

No sooner had Yokoyama lightened his grip than Tegoshi bolted, doubling back for the lakeside path. He could hear Yokoyama howl his name like a war cry behind him, Nishikido's voice joining a second later and mixing with the heavy footsteps and the sound of his own hurried breathing. They were fast, but he was faster, and he refused to let them catch him a second time.

He led them down the smaller road, further into the park and away from prying eyes, mind whirring frantically as he ran. If he remembered correctly, there was a bend in the trail up ahead and he had enough of a lead to make use of it. Pushing himself to the fastest his legs could carry him, he rounded the curve and immediately cut a sharp left into the trees. The knife was wrenched from his pocket and ripped free of its paper confines, shining dangerously in the dying light. Tegoshi steadied his breath as he waited for them to pass him. They probably didn't even think he was armed, the morons. No one ever thought he was much of a threat.

He'd just have to prove to them how wrong they were.

True to form, Yokoyama took the curve wide, barreling headlong and reckless down the path exactly like Tegoshi had expected him to do. A stupid mistake he wasn't going to live long enough to regret. Just when he thought he'd witness the satisfaction of the ripping the detective's belly open, Nishikido appeared, tugging Yokoyama out of his reach and sending him flying off into the underbrush. Tegoshi bit back his disappointment. Well, one cop or the other, they all bled the same. If he wanted to take Yokoyama's place so badly then Tegoshi was not going to spare him the blade.

Nishikido cried out when the metal plunged into his skin, staggering almost comically when Tegoshi kicked him backwards, using the leverage to pull the knife out simultaneously. Shock quickly turned to pain as the detective tumbled to the ground, hissing and clutching his side like the dumb, wounded animal he was. Tegoshi tightened his grip on the knife. Nishikido wasn't getting up any time soon. All he had to do was find and take care of Yokoyama and then he could come back and dispose of his partner.

At least, that was the plan until he heard an anguished cry and saw the third man. He didn't look like a cop, too wide-eyed and terrified by the scene before him, but if the way he cried out to Nishikido was anything to go by, he was an acquaintance of the pair. And if they saw fit to bring him there with him, there was a good choice he knew the reason for their trip.

Tegoshi licked his lips and leveled the knife in front of him. He couldn't allow for witnesses, especially not knowledgable ones. If more people had to die for the sake of his crusade then so be it. What was a little extra blood on his hands in the face of the greater good?

He had barely taken three steps toward his new target when a pain the likes of which he'd never experienced ripped through his throat. He screeched as he tumbled backwards to the ground, gasping for air and getting only liquid. It took him a moment to realize the horrible gurgling noise he heard was coming from him, blood splashing hot and thick down his front, and when he brought his fingers to his neck all the could feel was jagged, wet flesh and the familiar prick of bone fragments. 

Tegoshi sputtered, eyes searching wildly for his assailant. It was only then that he noticed Yokoyama climbing out of the underbrush, pistol drawn in his hands. Tegoshi could feel the rage rising within him even as he felt his life pouring out. Yokoyama had shot him. The son of a bitch had actually shot him. 

He tried to raise himself but his strength was fading fast. His arms gave out disappointingly easily when he coughed, spraying blood and saliva upon the gravel as he collapsed back onto the ground. How could they do this to him when had so much left to accomplish? This was all wrong, they were the ones who deserved to be laying in a pool of their own blood, watching their life leak out of them, helpless and angry and desperate. Not him. Never him.

He couldn't die when there were still so many women who needed fixing. The world had deigned it necessary to unleash those terrible, tacky walking errors upon the streets of Tokyo, and it was his job to correct them. It was his cross to bear, his punishment. If he couldn't be the beautiful daughter his mother wanted, then he could at least get rid of all the imperfect ones who refused to better themselves, content in living their petty little lives, ugly and imperfect. 

There was no one who could fix him, so all he could do was perform pennance the only way he knew how to. How dare they try and keep him from it?

He fought the growing weight of his eyelids long enough to search out the fool who had shot him again. Yokoyama was still staring at him, pale and shaky and on the cusp of terrified. As he should be. He was the one who did this. Let him watch what his poor judgement had wrought.

May his death be the albatross that hung heavy around their necks.

\--

"Yoko. _Yoko_!"

Yoko couldn't tear his eyes away from the sight of Tegoshi's pale form. He hadn't been actively thinking when he'd unholstered his pistol and raised it, just running off an instinct and adrenaline cocktail. For one crystal clear moment, everything had been still as if the universe had paused to gasp as he pulled the trigger, and then the world started to turn again with a bang, spinning like a Tilt-A-Whirl at max speed. He could feel his heart hammering in every fiber of his body, lungs on fire, blood racing. Blood. There was so much blood...

Koyama cried out his name again, finally managing to grab hold of Yoko's attention, pulling him back from the grusome sight before him. He swallowed in an effort to clear the desert in his mouth and turned his back on one crime scene in favor of another.

Ryo was propped up against a tree, a grimace on his face, while Koyama looked like he was on the verge of tears with his hands pressed against Ryo's abdomen. Hands that were coated in a thin sheen of sticky red. "Call for an ambulance, please!"

The sight was enough for Yoko to regain his bearings, if only temporarily. He placed his gun back into his holster and pulled out his phone, trying to ignore the way his fingers were trembling as he keyed in the numbers. He wasn't sure how he managed to say anything that made any sort of sense when the words were all jumbled in his head, but somehow he'd informed dispatch to add an ambulance to the request for backup that they'd put in on the way to the park. An ambulance and a coroner. Not at all how he had expected or wanted this to end.

Yoko snapped the phone shut, struggling to place it back in his pocket when his hands wouldn't stop shaking. _Breathe, Kimitaka. Help is on the way._

Fuck the phone. He could pick it up later. Tossing the device onto the grass, Yoko stumbled over to where Koyama and Ryo were and knelt between them, staring down at where his partner was propped up against a tree trying not to bleed to death. "You're a stupid, reckless ass, and I hope that hurts like hell."

Ryo snorted. "I love you, too." He looked weak, but he was alive, and for that much Yoko was grateful. He didn't think he could handle any more death at the moment.

Yoko ran a hand up into his hair, frustrated at how helpless he was. Tegoshi should have been in handcuffs in the back of their car, not lying motionless in a pool of his own blood with his throat ripped open. They shouldn't have let Koyama come along where he could fall into the line of danger so easily. Ryo shouldn't be sporting a new hole in his stomach because of Yoko's hotheadedness. "Why are you so...?"

"What? Dumb enough to get stabbed for someone like you?" Ryo managed a shaky laugh, a smile in the form of a wince sneaking onto his lips. "I didn't really think about it, I guess. All I could think about was how much you said you hated standing on the train."

"That is not in the least bit funny, Ryo."

"Good thing I'm not paid to be funny."

"You're not paid to be stabbed, either." Yoko sighed as he turned his attention to Koyama, giving him a brief once over. He looked just as frazzled as Yoko felt, tiny blots of blood flecking his face like freckles. Residual spray from when he'd shot Tegoshi in front of him, no doubt. Jesus, they were probably all going to have nightmares for a month from this case alone. Yoko jerked his head in Ryo's direction. "Is he going to be okay?"

Koyama's eyebrows were knitted together tightly as he looked from Ryo to Yoko. "I can't tell like this and I don't want to remove pressure long enough to poke around, but I don't think he hit anything vital." 

"Well, Ryo always did have an excess of dumb luck."

Nishikido lifted his right hand slowly, displaying his middle finger and letting the gesture respond for him. Yoko smiled. If he was well enough to do that, then things couldn't be so bad.

"How about you? Are you okay?"

The smile Koyama offered him was shaky at best, but at least it was there. Some small part of Yoko realized that it was the first time they had truly looked each other in the eye since that night in his hallway. "Maybe a little worse for wear, but I'm still here, aren't I?" His expression fell then as he craned his neck in the direction Yoko had come from. "Is he...?"

"Dead?" Yoko swallowed the lump in his throat, unable to look back at Tegoshi's rapidly cooling corpse. "Probably." He shifted, sinking to his knees and leaning over to place his forehead on Koyama's shoulder. Estranged relationship woes be damned; he needed the contact, the feel of another human, warm and alive against his skin. With his adrenaline high finally wearing off, the reality of the situation was finally allowed to come crashing down upon his head. "Fuck, I killed him."

"You did what you had to," Koyama murmured softly, resting his cheek on the top of Yoko's head. The touch was comforting even if he held little faith in the words that accompanied them. He'd panicked, let his emotions get the better of him, and someone had ended up dead once again. Tegoshi was sick in the head and Yoko might've hated him for all the horrible deeds he'd done, but he hadn't wanted it to end like this. Nobody deserved to die like that.

Ryo made a tiny, pained grunt, moving just enough so he could tap Yoko's knee weakly with his hand. "Don't beat yourself up. I would've done the same thing."

"That's a lot easier said than done, Ryo."

"Oi," Ryo laughed, a little too much wheeze in there for Yoko's liking. "Is that any way to treat someone after they take a knife to the gut for you? I'm trying to be comforting here, dick. "

Yoko frowned. Ryo didn't have to remind him of what he'd done for him; the blood seeping through his clothing was doing a good enough job of that. "I swear upon everything holy in this world, if you die on me, I will never forgive you."

"So if I live, everything's going to be okay?"

Yoko lifted his head to stare at his partner. There was pain on his face, of course, and a deep set exhaustion that seemed to have only worsened with his recently accquired stab wound, but there was also the faintest glimmer of hope. It was an expression that was mirrored on Koyama's face. A request for a truce.

The drama of the past week seemed so pointless in retrospect. The fighting, the drinking, the cold shoulder routine; all of it was dwarfed by their current predicament. How stupid would he have felt if the last conversation he'd had with either of them had been an argument? What an idiot he was that it took them almost getting killed for Yoko to realize how much they both meant to him.

Yoko felt the corners of his lips turning up as he closed his eyes again, returning his head to Koyama's shoulder. Blindly, he reached for where Ryo's hand was resting against his knee and took his index finger between Yoko's own to administer a light, affectionate squeeze. "Of course. You really think I'd want to ride the train alone?"

\--

The hospital was familiar; the sterile smell of chemicals and bleach, it was like a soothing balm against his skin. Yoko was agitated, fidgeting in his seat, feet tapping and eyes darting around, had been since they took Ryo into the ER.

No one else from the force was there, busy going over the case details, wading through paper work and there would be the media to wrangle, the crime scene to wrap up. Internal Affairs were called in on all police-related death. Koyama twisted on his seat, the nurses moving around behind the counter like they were unaffected by the continuous tragedy. It wasn’t often that he was on this side of the counter and he found the feeling disagreed with him.

Pneumothorax could be fatal, and he could only trust that the doctors knew what they were doing. The knife could have clipped the bottom of a lung, maybe punctured the liver. Tried to bring himself back to place, holding his hands over Ryo’s body, probably one of the few times he had ever physically touched the other man that wasn’t sex or some prelude to sex, trying to diagnose the trauma from what he had seen. The images were fragmented in his head, and he couldn’t focus on anything helpful, terror clouding what he could remember. 

“He’ll be okay.” He’d said it more for himself.

“What do you know?” Yoko snapped, and immediately slumped against the hard plastic chair, his fidgeting broken by Koyama’s voice, looking apologetic immediately afterwards.

“I used to work in a place like this. Before I moved to the station.” He hesitated to place a comforting hand on Yoko’s shoulder, not wanting to see him shrug it off, still not quite sure where he fit in with them after everything that had happened. “The doctors know what they are doing.”

“What are they doing?” Yoko eyed him carefully and Koyama pulled himself closer, wrapping his arms around his chest tightly.

“Puncture wound to the adomenothorasic region - they need to use an antibiotic membrane to keep the air from leaking from his lung if it punctured. If it gets worse it could lead to pneumothorax, a collapse of the lung.” He felt cold. “They will use a one-way needle to drain the fluid and keep the pressure stable, thoracetensis. If it missed the lung but hit the liver they will need to perform surgery to close up the wound. I don’t think it hit any bone, mostly soft tissue.”

“That easy?” Yoko sighed, looking defeated. The scene at the park had been touching and Koyama felt another wave of guilt; should have never come between two people who meant something to each other. 

“Yeah.” Koyama sighed, after the rush of adrenaline and stress he felt wiped, sad and exhausted. “That easy,” he echoed; Yoko was silent, the sounds of other people in the waiting area the only sound between them. “It’s harder on this side.”

“Hm?” Yoko hummed and Koyama sighed. He was irrationally scared, flashes going through his head. Tegoshi had looked so intent, knife already splattered with blood and bearing down on him, the man who had left all those girls on his table. Lives cut short, then like karma he was dead too, his blood misting across Koyama's face, warm in the humid weather, and there was a human under there, blood-stained hands and pretty hair. He hadn’t had time to freak out there, switching into doctor-mode easily as if he had never left. He had washed his hands and face in the rest room earlier, but there was still crusted blood under his nails and on his shirt, probably in his hair.

The tears stung his eyes, but he wouldn’t let them fall, wouldn’t embarrass himself like that.

“Hey.” Yoko’s hand on his shoulder and that was the last thing he could handle, a few stray tears spilling over. “You said he was going to be fine, Doc.”

“He is.” He could feel his face getting all flushed and blotchy from trying not to cry.

“Don’t do that.” The look of near panic on Yoko’s face would have been comical under any other circumstance. “Men don’t cry.”

He laughed, choked on it, and one of Yoko’s arms wrapped around his shoulders, tight and comforting. He leaned against the solid strength of him and let his eyes close. The intimacy was what he needed and he dropped off into a fitful sleep almost immediately.

The surgery was quick like he had expected, and Ryo was moved to recovery. It was late when the doctor came to let them know, the doctor looking as tired as Koyama felt; by this point Yoko looked like the walking dead. The doctor looked startled when Koyama began to ask questions in rapid fire while Yoko blinked and tried to keep up with the jargon being tossed back and forth by the doctors. Then it took a little badge flashing to get them into Ryo’s room - still sedated. His parents were informed and would probably be in tomorrow to see him. He was expected to make a full recovery and be discharged in a few days. 

“So for those of us who don’t speak mumbo jumbo?” Yoko stood at the door to the room, watching Ryo’s steady and even breathing. Koyama paused at the edge of his bed brushing his hair back.

“He said that Ryo will make a full recovery. He really is lucky, missed almost everything vital. All they needed to do was repair a nick to his liver. After that it should be okay. They stitched up the trauma.” In the face of the beeping machines and Ryo hooked up to them, sleeping a deep medicated sleep, all their petty issues seemed so much less important.

“He’s a tough guy.” Yoko took a few steps towards the bed, as if needing to see for himself that Ryo would be okay. He didn’t touch, but he did look relieved and more than a little dead on his feet.

“Come home with me.” Yoko stiffened and Koyama bit lip.

“What do you--“

“I mean to sleep.” Koyama stared at the pale form of Ryo, lying there completely immobile like the bodies that came in and out of his domain all day. “I don’t want to be alone, and I don’t think you do either.” If he had a dollar for every time that line had worked for him.

He turned his eyes on Yoko and watched him crumble under his stare, already broken down and chipped, exhausted and wrung out.

“Yeah, okay.”

Koyama ran his hands through Ryo’s hair again, the heat of his body comforting and alive. He would fix things between them, he _could_ fix things; that is what doctors did. “Sleep well.” He knew Yoko’s eyes were on him, could feel them burning holes into his back. He leaned over and pressed a soft kiss to Ryo’s cheek anyway. 

“Let’s go. It has been a long day.” Yoko was silent for the whole drive, drumming his fingers on the arm rest and looking at everything but Koyama when they stopped at lights; he looked like he had something to say but couldn’t find the words. His head was hurting by the time they finally pulled into the parking garage across from his apartment, stress and fatigue and a gnawing guilt he knew all too well.

“Come on.” Koyama took the stairs two at a time, needed a shower to release a little stress and to wash away the blood, sweat, and fear from his skin. He just needed to get in bed. His hands were shaking a bit and the lock took longer then it should have - it took everything in him not to just kick the door in frustration. “Do you want to shower?”

“Yeah, thanks.”

“You know where the towels are.” Koyama smiled a little bitterly at Yoko’s retreating back. While the shower ran he made up the couch bed which hadn’t been used since the last time that his sister had come to visit and he had slept on it. Usually when he brought men back it was his sheets that saw all the action; any other day and he and Yoko would have been falling into bed, all desperation and heated kisses.

Yoko emerged from the bathroom, shirtless and towelling his hair. Koyama put the pillow he had been contemplating on the couch bed. “I hope the couch is okay. There are some left-over noodles in the fridge, and if Nyanta bugs you just push him away, okay? I’m going to shower and go to bed. Those pants should fit you.” He waved vaguely at the set up.

“No.” Yoko stared him down, eyes dark and intense despite the obvious exhaustion that was weighing him down. He had fucked up again. Kept making the same mistakes over and over, and each time it hurt even more, guilt and anger swirling in his stomach.

“I’m sorry.” Finally home and so close to a shower and bed, it was all he could do not to sag where he stood. “Would you like to take the bed?”

“You’re kind of dumb - it's a good thing you're pretty.” Yoko reached out and grabbed Koyama’s shoulder and pulled the tall doctor towards him. Koyama went without any fight, resisting the urge to rest all his weight on the other man.

“Not the first time I’ve heard that.” His voice was muffled against Yoko’s shoulder.

“I’m sure Ryo’ll tell you when he gets out.” Koyama pressed his eyes closed and tried to twine around Yoko as tightly as he could. “Come on, you need to shower too.”

It was oddly non-sexual, more about comfort than foreplay; Yoko clumsily washed Koyama’s hair and watched wearily as the other man tried to scrub the skin from his hands and face with a pale blue poofy thing. Koyama didn’t care to think about what Yoko thought of it, but he couldn’t get the feeling of hot slick blood sweeping between his fingers out of his head. Yoko tugged it out of his hands and hung it up. Koyama sighed, resting his head against the slick skin of his chest as the conditioner was rinsed from his hair.

“I’m so tired.” Yoko sighed when the water was shut off and the last of it swirled down the drain.

“It’s over.” Koyama smiled weakly.

“Yeah.” Even with a healthy pink glow from the hot shower, Yoko’s skin looked waxy and sick. “Come on, sleep.”

They didn’t even bother to dress, Yoko collapsing in his bed and doing a weird little wiggle to get under the covers. Koyama got in his side, hair making the pillow damp. He rolled across the bed until he could feel the heat of Yoko’s body and smell his own shampoo on the other man. Then he slept.

Koyama woke up gasping not even two hours later, apparently trying to smother himself face first in the pillow. Snatches of dreams floated on the edge of his conscious and made his heart pound - flesh and bone and Ryo on his table torn apart like the other victims, cause of death massive blood loss due to severe organ trauma. Plastic sheet covering his next body, familiar height and--

He was shaking; no way was he getting back to sleep now, images too stark in his mind, finding himself alone in bed. Frowning in the darkness, he swung his legs over the bed and into where he could see the faintest glow of light from his kitchen. Yoko was eating an apple and sitting at the table.

“Your cat woke me up. He wanted to be fed,” he said by way of explanation and waved a vague hand at Nynta, who was busy making small growling sounds and eating as if he’s been starving and wasn’t a bit over-weight.

“Sorry.” He’d been out of sorts and didn’t bother to feed him when he got home.

“It’s okay, I wasn’t sleeping very well anyways.” His fists curled on the table top and Koyama moved across the kitchen to drape himself over the tense line of the other man’s shoulders.

“I was having nightmares, too.” Koyama knew death, but this was different, personal. “You know.” He pressed his cheek against the other man’s still-damp hair; Yoko’s hair was so thick that it might be dry by morning. “You saved my life - probably Ryo’s, too.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Yoko said between clenched teeth. “You weren’t supposed to get in the way.”

“I’m not sorry.” Koyama rubbed his cheek against the other man’s hair, humming. He’d been scared, he had been petrified, and then he’d seen the bullet rip through the boy. Still he couldn’t be sorry that he’d instinctively followed them, knowing at some gut level that something was going to go wrong.

“You’re so stubborn.” Yoko sighed.

“You’ve never minded it before.” Koyama smiled. “Let’s go back to bed. You’ve got to be tired.”

This time he pressed closer, focusing on Yoko’s breathing to lull him back to sleep.

\--

The first press of lips landed on his cheek, surprising him a little. Koyama twisted where he stood, Ryo's arms looping around his waist and squeezing him for a moment before going lax, a comforting gesture. He let his hands slip around Ryo's middle, holding the other man close to him and breathing in the scent of his skin and hair, wallowing in the fact that Ryo was recovering cleanly and looked no worse for the stab wound, and the fact that Ryo apparently wanted to continue like nothing had changed between them. True to form and brash as hell, as soon as Ryo was discharged he called up Koyama and told him he was coming over and he was going to bring Yoko and they were going to have a chat. Well, not in those words - maybe a little more awkward, using bravado to cover up his obvious nervousness. Koyama smiled fondly, heading home right after work to tidy up a bit.

"You know, I'm probably still a little mad at you," Ryo mumbled against his neck. Koyama twisted to hold him closer.

"Don't be mad." He turned so he could press a kiss, soft and lingering, against Ryo's thin lips. Felt the other man's lips twitch in a quick smile against his. "I don't like it when you're mad."

"I think Yoko might be pretty mad, too." Calling Koyama's attention to the other man in the room, looking uncomfortable and trying to look anywhere but at them; he had the look of a kid sitting on his hands because he’d been told not to touch. 

"Huh?" Yoko's gaze hedged away and Koyama frowned.

"What are you going to do about it?" Ryo's voice had that same tone; the 'come out for coffee with me’ tone, and no one had ever accused Koyama of being slow on the uptake. He smiled, feeling a tingle travel down his spine, anticipation.

"Oh no you don't." He pushed out of Ryo's arm to go sit down in one of the chairs; his cat gave him a lazy stare from where he sat on the arm. "Sex is what got me into this mess." Ryo's shark-grin was now turned on him. Yoko perked up a little. Koyama watched out the corner of his eye as he puzzled through what Ryo was implying. He had to admit the idea was exciting - he wanted it, wanted to feel both of their firm bodies pressing against his own, surrounding him and making him feel safe and complete. Instead he smiled at Ryo, tilting his head a little so he could see Yoko's face better without it being obvious.

Logically, he knew they should probably talk about this more, but he also knew these two, and while yes, they were gay cops, they didn't want to _act_ like gay cops.

"Aren't you mad, Yoko?" Ryo stared at him, and they seemed to be communicating with their eyes, something that Koyama couldn’t interpret. Yoko smiled, pink lips forming a pretty curve that eased the rest of his worries. They hadn’t solved anything, but maybe they didn’t need to.

"Furious." He quirked an eyebrow at Koyama's badly suppressed snort. "What are you going to do about it?"

"What do you want me to do?" He licked his lips.

"I could think of a few things." The touch of Ryo's mouth to his was electric, different, almost like he had forgotten the sensation. He slid his tongue along the seam of thin lips until Ryo let him do as he pleased. He sucked on his bottom lip lightly, sinking deeper into the chair, forcing Ryo to bend to follow him. He let Ryo's tongue follow his, soft slick glides against each other, flicking softness against his lips.

The touches were tender, using one hand to brace himself over Koyama using the back of the chair, the other holding his cheek. Koyama gave every bit of himself over to the kiss, all the little secret parts of him that he kept to himself.

A touch on his shoulder and a muttered "damn cat" made him smile against Ryo's lips, tipping his head back to look at Yoko through his bangs. "Is this okay?"

"Yeah," he breathed. Yoko's hand was in his hair, snaring the strands between his fingers and letting it slip through, almost petting him. He let his head fall into the touch. Ryo pressed hot kisses to the exposed bits of his neck while Yoko used the hand in his hair to angle his head for his own kiss. Soft lips against his own and he licked at them, arching into the contact as Ryo sucked on a point low on his neck, sending a shock of sensation down his spine to settle low in his dick. Yoko nipped at his bottom lip and he opened his mouth, the other man taking the moan from his lips with his clever tongue.

They seemed to have some sort of method worked out, switching off making him breathless, hands and mouths traveling his body, sneaking under the hem of his shirt and fluttering just on the right side of ticklish across his stomach and ribs. He tried to retaliate, tugging at hair, clothes, at one point digging his fingers into Ryo’s bicep as he pressed his face in close under his jaw, shouldering Yoko out of the way. He bit at Yoko’s mouth, soothing the pinch of teeth with his tongue as the other man moaned against the side of his face.

“You know there nearly isn’t enough room here.”

“You’re telling me. He keeps stepping on my foot,” Ryo said. He had his free hand up Koyama’s shirt so he could rub the heel of his hand across one taught nipple.

“Well if you weren’t so pushy,” Yoko sniped back.

Koyama laughed, delighted. “Quiet you.” Yoko kissed him hard and Koyama tilted back into it, letting him do as he pleased, still smiling.

When they both pulled back it was a little cold having been wrapped up in their body heat not only moments ago. “Bedroom?”

“More space.” Ryo agreed, leaning over to place a quick kiss on Yoko’s lips, both of them leaning on his chair, Koyama flushed. To say he was surprised would be a lie; they were both incredibly hot and he caught the barest flash of Ryo’s tongue and Yoko’s full lips. His shirt was already mostly pushed up to his armpits so it only took the slightest movement to pull it over his head and toss it on the long couch.

“Bedroom.” He prodded Ryo, who broke the kiss looking a little dazed. “Come on, there is so much I want to do.” When he stood it forced the two men to take a step back.

“I’m pretty sure it was supposed to be the other way around.” Ryo sighed, following Koyama towards his bedroom.

“That’s just what he wants you to think.” Yoko laughed and Koyama grinned to himself - he always got his way one way or another, and they really should have known that by now. Yoko’s arms wrapped around his chest, pressing up against his back, and pressed his mouth to his shoulder, tongue flicking softly and he felt the barest scrape of teeth.

Then he was caught as Ryo tugged his face down for a fierce kiss; he kissed with almost explosive passion, all tongue, lips, and a hint of teeth and Koyama responded with his own desperation, holding the back of Yoko’s thigh to keep him from moving away and the small of Ryo’s back to keep him close. Their shirts were rough against his skin and he moaned into Ryo’s mouth, dizzy with the wash of sensation.

Yoko bit down lightly, sucking hard and Koyama tried to arch into it, but he was trapped between them. That in itself was a turn on and he moaned desperately against Ryo’s mouth. Ryo’s answering moan vibrated from his chest and Koyama could feel it pressed as tight as they were together. His fingers twisted, trying to keep a grip on them as his head swam, pleasure spiking each time Yoko would grind against him and push him harder into Ryo. If they continued like this, this new arrangement was going to kill him. C.O.D., heart failure due to extreme sexual contact; there had been isolated cases from repressed-- the thought fled, Ryo’s hands trying to weasel into the absent space between him and Yoko. Didn’t understand what he was trying to do until Yoko groaned low against the skin of his neck.

“Fuck, Ryo.” Yoko huffed, and Ryo grinned, leaning heavily against Koyama. He was stuck in the middle, Ryo kissing Yoko just over his shoulder, pressing him between them, the faint wet sounds of tongues sliding against each other, little hums of pleasure. He pressed his eyes closed and it did nothing to help cool him down.

This was like something out of bad porn, being held at the mercy of two cops. Not that he was completely useless; Koyama always gave back as good as he got - it was a matter of pride. Letting go of Yoko, he held onto Ryo’s shoulders the same way he did when he was flat on his back and Ryo was above him, letting his nails scrape through the fabric. He was rewarded when Ryo shivered all over, a muted little noise tearing from his throat. 

Ryo pulled away, flushed and lips a dark splash of colour in his sharp face. He was trying to scowl but it looked almost like a pout and Koyama smiled indulgently, Yoko’s hands coming to land on his bare stomach now that there was space. He reached around them to the fly of his casual jeans, toying with it just to see the way Ryo’s eyes snapped to the movement looking almost predatory.

Koyama grinned. “What do you want?”

Yoko huffed against his ear, holding him tighter and Ryo swallowed. “Do it, get naked.”

“Alright.” Koyama wiggled out of Yoko’s grip so he could shimmy off his jeans, letting them pool on the floor, leaving him in a pair of boxer-briefs and a flirty smile. He launched himself at the bed and wiggled until he was more or less propped against the pillows and watching them.

Ryo went to take his shirt off, but Yoko stopped him, running his hands up under his partner’s shirt instead. “Here let me,” he said and Ryo grinned, holding his arms like a kid. “Dork.” Yoko smiled, kissed him quickly before pulling it off and again after Ryo was free of the material. Ryo had smooth skin with small constellations of moles on his shoulder and chest; Koyama liked to map them with his tongue.

His mouth watered a little thinking about it, saliva pooling under his tongue and making him swallow. He followed the concave of Ryo’s stomach next, lingering on the gauze still covering the stitches there, distracted for a moment by Yoko’s pale fingers rubbing softly at the edges. He watched the play of skin and snow-white gauze.

“Hey, that tickles.” Ryo squirmed and Yoko muttered a soft apology but didn’t remove his hand. “Oh, stop that.” Ryo grabbed Yoko’s hair and pulled him into a kiss rather roughly. Koyama smiled, watching as they fought with their tongue as much as they fought with their words bickering without meaning any of it. This was a good angle - he could see Yoko’s soft lips, the way their hands traced the smooth lines of muscle on each others' backs.

He hummed low in his throat, letting his legs spread to accommodate the pulse of arousal that thrummed through his body. He could feel his skin heating up in an aroused flush, making his cheeks hot. He was well on his way to being fully hard, blood pooling in his dick. The two of them broke to tear Yoko’s shirt off; it dropped to the floor and Ryo attacked Yoko’s neck with his mouth, making a happy little sound when Yoko gasped. Ryo liked to bite. Koyama loved it, let his head loll to the side as Ryo sucked his skin between his teeth and tasted him all over.

Yoko apparently liked it too, groaning low in his throat and holding Ryo’s head against his chest when the other man stooped to find a nipple with his tongue and teeth. He was rubbing his free hand across Ryo’s shoulders, the skin a little pink where Koyama had scratched at it. Whenever they met the mood was desperation and watching them make out was no different; Yoko held Ryo like he’d be gone if he let go and Ryo threw everything into coaxing different gasps and moans from the other man.

He pressed his palm against his dick through the soft cotton and felt the heat and a slight dampness. The friction sent a spark of pleasure through him and he shifted, lifting his hips a little into the contact. He sighed, the pleasure singing faintly along his nerves, not quite the all-encompassing burn yet.

Yoko turned to look at him and Koyama tilted his head to the side, bringing his hand up so he could lick lewdly at his palm and fingers, slipping it below the band of his underwear, the touch of his own fingers slick and hot, wrapping his hand around the head of his cock so he could fuck the tunnel of his fist moaning hotly at the sensation.

“If you wanted something you could have just asked,” Yoko hissed, his cheeks colouring pink at Koyama’s rather shameless display. 

“Not really, I’m good.” He let himself sink deeper into the pillows.

Ryo untangled himself from Yoko, popped the button on his jeans and crawled on the bed, moving up Koyama’s body, rubbing his legs all the way up to his hips and leaning in for hungry kisses.

The bed dipped as Yoko added his weight, just enough room for the three of them. Yoko helped Ryo out of his jeans and tossed them on the floor, plastering himself across Ryo’s back. Arms and legs going everywhere, Koyama couldn’t keep track of whose hands belong to whom, caressing up his flank and across his ass, down his biceps, across his cheeks. Yoko’s pants got in the way, and so they got rid of them, him crawling off the bed to do so.

With the space, Koyama rolled them so he was on top, straddling Ryo’s waist and grinning down at him as he let his ass rub against the obvious heat of his trapped cock.

“You…” Koyama tossed a look to Yoko, the other man looking like he wanted to say something. Flicking hair that was beginning to stick to his face out of the way, he smiled.

“Hm?”

“It’s nothing.” Yoko let the pants hit the floor and leaned across the bed to kiss Koyama. Ryo’s hands were on his hips, tugging at the elastic and making the material rub across the head of his cock, sending little shocks running up his spine. He moaned against Yoko’s mouth, rocking his hips up into the sensation and back down against Ryo. “You just look really good like that.” Koyama smiled at him, feeling like he could glow if he tried hard enough. He settled for trying to convey the feeling with his tongue, drawing Yoko’s lip into his mouth and sucking on it gently.

He found that he could just reach Yoko’s cock with his left hand, rubbing at it clumsily, mostly just providing Yoko something to ride against. Ryo tugged the elastic down as low as it would go with his legs in the way and caught his eyes.

“I want to fuck you.”

“Yeah.” Breath hitching faintly at the look in Ryo’s eyes; Koyama may have been on top but there was no question who was calling the shots.

“Yoko?” Ryo sat up, forcing Koyama to sit back on his lap, toying with his navel with the edge of his nail. Gooseflesh spread across Ryo’s belly. “Stop that.” Koyama smiled, rubbing at the shivers, Ryo’s stomach muscles tightening under his hands. “What do you want?”

Yoko flushed a little, looking unsure. Koyama tilted his head to the side and made sure to look at him from under his eyelashes.

“I want to fuck you too.” Koyama swallowed hard. “after Ryo does.”

His voice caught.

“Yeah.” He breathed and Ryo groaned.

“Up, off.” Ryo tapped his hip and Koyama swung his leg over him, sitting back and tugging his underwear down the rest of the way. Bare assed, and more than ready.

“Here.” Ryo twisted, helping Yoko with the last of his clothes. So much skin; Koyama grabbed Yoko and pulled him so he was lying down and straddled his legs so he was sitting on his thighs, hands on his chest.

“Like this.”

“Good idea.” Ryo leaned over his shoulder and kissed the bruise Yoko had left there; his own was at the base of Koyama’s neck on the other side. With how close he was pressed against his back, Ryo’s cock was riding the crease of his ass, making him shiver and shake. He let himself rest against Yoko’s chest, pressing his face against Yoko’s neck and whimpering softly.

“Ryo.” He couldn’t really press back all that well without risking his balance, so he could only hold himself there, licking at the salty skin of Yoko’s neck. Yoko’s hands were running down his back, resting on his ass before moving back up, bumping Ryo’s fingers every now and then. “Come on.”

The first finger came as a bit of a shock pressing inside; he breathed out sharply, jolting against the touch, Yoko’s hands petting down his flanks. It burned deliciously, like stretching out a sore muscle, and he moaned low in his chest when Ryo moved. Yoko’s hands on his shoulders encouraged him to rest more weight on him and Koyama complied, moaning when he shifted, his cock sliding into the groove of his hip, sweat providing only the barest glide, friction just on the side of too much friction.

Then he was arching anyways, pressing back against the burning stretch of two fingers pressing inside of him. He lifted himself a little, catching Yoko’s face; he looked almost awed, holding Koyama close. Koyama tried to smile, but had to bite his lip as Ryo’s hands twisted, tugging on sensitive nerves and making tiny little shocks of pleasure race through his body coming to rest low in his stomach.

“You’re beautiful,” Yoko whispered against his hair. Koyama twisted and arched under their hands, pressing into the contact and moaning for more. He kind of wanted to say something like ‘I think I love you’, but managed to catch it behind his teeth. Maybe there would be time for that one day.

“ _Please Ryo_ , oh just please.” Koyama’s pleading was muffled by Yoko forcing his head down for a kiss and he kissed Yoko desperately, pouring himself into it. He could feel Ryo’s hand on his hip, moving Yoko’s hand to his ass, didn’t really have time to think about it because in between one noisy inhale and the next Ryo was pressing inside of him. He moved slowly and Koyama wanted to scream, and to peel out of his skin, anything to make the feeling stop and at the same time go on forever. Being filled in places you hadn’t known were empty and tightness in his chest had Koyama tearing his mouth away from Yoko’s and moaning loudly.

 _”Oh god,”_ he groaned, breathing for a moment when everything finally stopped moving, all too aware of the thickness inside of him.

“Can you feel that?” Ryo’s voice was low, near his shoulder, rough and strained.

“Yeah.” Yoko’s face was flushed, chewing on his lips. The shock of fingertips where he was being stretched around the girth of Ryo’s cock had him crying out, resting his weight on Yoko’s chest.

Koyama’s heart was beating so fast it was going to just go into arrest; he hissed and shifted, rocking back slowly against Ryo’s hips, trying to goad him into moving. It worked and he breathed in sharply, almost choking on it when the first thrust rocked his body, making him rub against Yoko.

They were all around him; the air that he couldn’t seem to get enough of tasted like sex, the smell of sex and arousal all around him, hands and mouths working over his skin.

Ryo’s pace was slow and languid, smooth rolls and hands on his hips pulling him back against each thrust enough to have his nerves sizzling, shrieking and he couldn’t stop the babble that was pouring out of his mouth. ‘Fuck me, please Ryo, oh god.’ Some of it was muffled when he pressed his mouth against Yoko’s collar bone, trying to rock back against Ryo but caught by the firm grip on his hips.

Between all the rubbing inside and out he couldn’t hold on, tried desperately, but he was so hard and each push had him rubbing and sliding against Yoko’s hip and his own stomach. He was leaking, making the slide smoother and it wasn’t helping, orgasm building in his spine and the pit of his stomach.

“Ah,” he moaned, arching against the hands petting down his back.

“Let go.” Yoko’s voice was low and commanding in his ear and Koyama couldn’t hold on, came with a wail. It was like electricity, one moment of pleasure so intense that it could wipe every other thought from his mind, leaving nothing but sensation behind. He pulsed, jerking as he spilled over Yoko’s tummy in short bursts, Ryo’s pace picking up and pushing him higher.

Gasping against Yoko’s shoulder he tried to come down, everything bright and sharp and Ryo was moaning, pressing his face against the curve of Koyama’s spine, his rhythm faltering and growing jerky. With a few last almost brutal thrusts Ryo came with a growl, fingertips digging into Koyama’s hips as he shook his way through his orgasm. Koyama envied Yoko being able to see; Ryo was beautiful like that, head thrown back to expose the long line of his neck, flushed and taught. Ryo pulled out and Koyama hissed in discomfort, feeling empty.

“Still okay?” Yoko asked, voice tight and expectant.

“Yeah.”

Koyama lifted up, and Yoko rolled a condom down, even as Ryo snapped his condom off and tossed it, curling around them to watch.

He was only given a moment before Yoko was guiding him to lift up and when he lowered himself again it was onto Yoko; he tossed his head back, breathing shallow as gravity pulled him down, oh so slowly impaling himself on Yoko’s cock. It burned, burned like being well used and he could see Ryo out of the sliver of his eyes left open, looking sated and happy curled against his sheets watching him with banked hunger.

“Koyama,” Yoko groaned and Koyama shifted his feet so he was more stable, rocking his hips lazily. “Can I?” Yoko tugged on his foot and Koyama nodded, carefully moving and rolling so that Koyama was on his back under and Yoko had his legs wrapped around his hips, heels digging into his lower back.

He moaned, Yoko setting up a quick rhythm to begin with, probably already pretty frantic with the need to come.

He couldn’t help it, nails digging into Yoko’s back as he clung to him, pleasure cutting through like a knife-edge sharp and intense. It couldn’t go on like this for long, not at this pace. Yoko’s eyes intense and focused on him, Koyama surrendered to the feeling of it, the slight burn in his hips from being forced to cant upwards like that, the pulse of blood in his still half-hard dick, trying to get hard again but not quite able.

Yoko’s lips were parted, breathing quiet and fast, cheeks flushed and obviously only just hanging on. Koyama felt it the moment he snapped, body going tight, eyes pressed closed and a low groan vibrating from his chest as he snapped his hips, pressing as deep as he could and grinding against him as he shuddered.

Koyama let his legs fall with a wince, sore in so many different ways, and probably the happiest that he had ever been. It took all his will power to get up and get something to wash himself down with, bringing it back to share. Only the most basic clean up completed, he fell into bed on the other side of Ryo, putting the dark haired detective in the middle. The bed was only just big enough for the three of them not to be smooshed together; still, he could feel the body heat, could shift and touch Ryo’s shoulder. Shifted so that his head was resting on Ryo’s shoulder, looking up at him from between dark lashes.

“We should talk about this,” he said, almost cutting himself off with a yawn.

“Fuck it,” Ryo grumbled, turning so he could pull Koyama against him, Yoko curling around his back, hands coming around his waist.

Koyama smiled.

\--

It was a little odd, seeing each other in their off-work clothing. Gone were the suits and ties and dress shoes, replaced by old t-shirts, loose pants, and overly bright sneakers. Or, in Koyama's case, a pair of jeans so tight, they looked like they had been painted on. Ryo had asked how Koyama even got into them; Yoko had commented that he wanted to watch him get _out_. Koyama had just laughed and told them he might show them if they were good.

The three still hadn't really talked about the evolution of their relationship. Waking up in a naked, tangled mess of limbs had been awkward, hedging on embarrassing. But then Ryo had snapped at Yoko for drooling on his hair in the night and the status quo had been restored. Maybe they didn't really need to talk about it. It was obvious they all cared about each other and, perhaps, that was all that really counted. Any deeper pondering over the mechanics of their relationship could be saved for the two weeks the detectives had had recently and rather forcibly freed. 

Internal Affairs hadn't been pleased to find out one of their detectives had not only shot, but killed a man, even if it had been to save the lives of himself and two others. Tegoshi could have had more kills under his belt than they knew about, but Yoko had made sure that any extra information the killer possessed had followed him to the grave. That Yoko and Ryo had gone off to confront a dangerous serial killer without assembling a team had been another issue, and dragging along Koyama hadn't put them in the higher ups' good graces any more. There'd also been the fact that they'd falsely arrested the vice president of a major talent agency. If it hadn't been for Joshima's insistance that Yoko was a good cop with a solid arrest record to prove it - and Matsumoto not insisting on pressing charges - Yoko probably would've spent the weekend drafting his resignation letter and cleaning out his desk. 

Nevertheless, both detectives were forced to take two week vacations, Yoko's listed as a disciplinary act, while Ryo was given a recuperation period. At least, that's what it said on all the official paper work. In reality, everyone knew it was a matter of mental health. This case had been riding them ruthlessly for close to a month, only to climax in a violent and deadly way. Nobody would blame them for needing a break before being thrown back into the madness of their jobs. 

Neither Ryo nor Yoko had seen it like that though, eager to prove that they could still function like normal even if they were still a little broken. They had both objected loudly, but swiftly shut up when the Chief told them he would have Matsuoka _and_ Yamaguchi kick their asses if they even laid a foot on the premises any time in the next fortnight. Self preservation was more important than pride or boredom.

Of course, this meant they now had two weeks free and no idea what to do with themselves. Koyama had been the one to suggest they visit the grave of the last girl to fall by Tegoshi's hand, inviting himself along for the trip. They'd all felt the same measure of guilt over Matsuda's murder, though none of them would admit it aloud. Visiting her grave had been the least they felt they could do. 

It took a little snooping, but soon enough they were all crammed in a cab to Ota in search of the little cemetary on the hill. Koyama and Ryo brought flowers, Yoko brought incense. 

The grave was easy to find, the only one with a freshly painted wooden namestick erected at its side. Ryo had made a valiant effort at reading the posthumous name Satomi had been given, but the writing was complex and his companions were of no help; Yoko and Koyama had enough problems reading every day kanji. They knew better than to even attempt figuring out a name written with such archaic characters.

Wordlessly, they lit the intense and laid the flowers down near the grave, joining the tiny bouquets and little mementos already sitting there. Little trinkets for a girl who died far too young and for reasons they couldn't and probably never would understand. 

"Do you think..." Koyama licked his lips, eyes lingering over the tokens left behind by people who had known Matsuda far better than any of them. People who would miss her deeply, the pretty girl who'd just wanted to be a star. "Do you think killing her made him happy?"

They knew the textbook answer, that the motivation for serial killers was more often than not a question of control. Some derived pleasure from it, some saw it as the only means of sating their compulsions. Applying the textbook to the real world, however, often left much to be desired. Logic was cold, uncaring. Didn't account for the people behind the tragedies.

Ryo bumped his hand against one of Koyama's, linking the fingers silently. "I can't imagine how it could've."

"Taking someone's life is not a happy feeling." Yoko squatted down onto his haunches, fingers toying with the large, waxy petals of one of the the bouquets of lilies sitting by the grave. He flinched when Koyama placed a hand on the back of his head but was otherwise silent, staring long and hard at the grave before him. When he finally stood, he was rubbing his eyes. "Let's get out of here, the incense is getting to me." 

No one said a word as they trekked back down the hill, hand in hand and just as silent as the graves they passed. Only once they'd made it to the main entrance and away from the deathly stillness of the graveyard did Koyama speak. He tugged on Yoko's hand, squeezing the fingers there. "What're you going to do with your time off?"

"You mean my time out?" Yoko groused. "I was thinking of going back to Osaka. See my family and friends, fill up on good food. You know, act like a normal human being for once."

On the other side of Koyama, Ryo snorted. "Are you sure you're even capable of that?"

Yoko scrunched up his face and stuck out his tongue at his partner like the responsible adult he was. Koyama smiled, turning his attention to the other half of the bickering duo. "What about you, smart mouth?"

"Actually," Ryo hedged, "I was thinking about doing the same thing. It's been a while since I've been home. Tokyo is nice and all, but it's not Osaka." His expression turned sheepish suddenly, scratching his nose nervously as he looked to Yoko. "Maybe I could join you."

"Train buddies?" Yoko's lips quirked up at the edges, a sentiment that was soon reflected back to him on Ryo's face. 

"Yeah, train buddies."

Content to let the two have one of their little buddy cop moments, Koyama broke away from them momentarily, crossing to the edge of the sidewalk with a couple strides of his long legs. He stretched, shirt riding up to expose a thin strip of skin along his waist and smiled when he turned and caught both of them throwing not-so-discreet stares at him. "I hear Osaka is nice this time of year." 

"It's nice _every_ time of year," Ryo sniped, Yoko nodding along vehemently. Let it never be said that the two lacked in love for their shared hometown. 

"Is that so? Maybe I should visit, then." 

Yoko and Ryo were both more than familiar that tone. It was the same airy lilt Koyama used when he told them 'maybe' they should come over for drinks right before taking them home for a roll in the sheets. The 'my intents are less than innocent but you'll enjoy it anyway' voice. 

Yoko rolled his eyes, bottom lip jutting out into a pout. "Must you drag yourself into everything we do?" It earned him a laugh and a quick peck on the lips.

"I may hang out with dead guys but that doesn't mean I can't have a life. And you've gotta admit," Koyama smiled, closing the gap between them again and linking arms with both men, "we make a pretty great team."

Yoko sighed, more for show than anything else, and gazed at his comrades. Ryo was grinning from ear to ear with that Cheshire Cat smile of his and the smug look was back in Koyama's eyes again, fully expecting Yoko to cave in like always. Yoko laughed softly. How he had ever ended up with these two crazies, he would never know, but to be honest, he wouldn't exchange them for the world.

"Yeah, I guess we do."


End file.
